Planet VeGMeL

Monday Melbourne Roundup (Wednesday edition)

2010-03-10T10:32:00+00:00

A relatively quiet week. I'm feeling loads better, I got made permanent at my job so I will have no money for a million years (I'm switching from weekly pay to monthly pay, my first pay 5 days before I go to Europe which is probably a good thing).

out

Madagascar
Oh Noni. This play was the most suicidally depressing play I've seen in ages, it was really superb but really, only see it if you are prepared to want to slash your wrists afterwards. Amazingly acted, Noni is just stunning always. MTC subscription, I have perhaps figured you out, the three plays I've seen this year so far have been spectacular. From the MTC website:
"In a hotel room overlooking the Spanish Steps in Rome, three versions of a story are told at three different times: by an older woman Lilian, by a young woman June, and by an older man Nathan. As each reveals how they came to be in that room, the audience pieces together the story of a young man’s mysterious disappearance and its shattering implications.

In Madagascar, playwright J.T. Rogers meditates on the past’s ability to hold on to us and our slow-arriving acceptance that it may never let go."

eats/drinks

The Vegie Bar

I ate what I usually eat, house salad with rice balls which is always amazing. But I tried some of Daves fake duck stir fry thing and it was out of control, I am so getting that next time.

Horse Bazaar

Clicky clicky.

Sociable cheese scones

2010-03-09T22:33:00+00:00

I was pleased that we did so well in catering for the gluten free among my family at Sylvia's birthday party. But there are some foods that I still find difficult to make without wheat flour. Scones are such an easy thing to bake and just pulling out the regular self raising flour is part of that simplicity. So unfortunately I did not offer a gluten free option for the cheese scones.

I confess that they were so good that I would have been happy if my whole family were gluten free and I had to eat them all myself. Of course I am happy to share with them but had hoped for one of two of them to be leftover. After all, I had been inspired to make them for E who had asked for cheese muffins. So it seems I still need to make a batch that will be around the house for him.

I quite like baking scones for a crowd and had some gruyere cheese in the fridge. With E's request in mind, I was immediately taken by Ashley's Cheddar and Black Pepper Scones. They looked both virtuously wholemeal and indulgently packed with cheese. I started to follow the recipe but felt it had more sugar and salt than I needed. I had a look at Cindy's Gruyere and Pecan Scones, which she says are perfect for an afternoon tea with friends. Her recipe had no sugar and a quarter of the salt that Ashley used. I added some seasoning and would use smoked paprika again but am not sure the chives were necessary.

I also couldn't resist Cindy's scattering of cheese over her scones. Gruyere is always great when it melts and crisps up. I chose to cut out small round scones and cluster them together. One of the problems with the method is that the outside ones seem to cook quicker than those in the middle.

My parents arrived just as I took the scones out of the oven. They looked ok but I thought maybe the middle ones could cook a bit more. My mum and I had a taste and decided they were a little doughy so I put them back in the oven for another 5 minutes. It was a good decision. They went straight from the oven into a teatowel until we were ready to serve them with butter.

As I said, the scones went down very well. They were so good they could have been eaten warm with no spread but they were lovely with butter melting into them. I would even like a bit of jam on top. Scones warm out of the oven are always welcome and just the thing for any afternoon tea.

Gruyere Scones
Adapted from Where's the Beef and Eat Me Delicious
Makes about 24 small scones

2 cups wholemeal self raising flour
1 cup white self raising flour
2 tbsp chives
½ tsp smoked paprika
¼ teaspoon salt
dash of cayenne
50g butter, cold and diced
175g gruyere cheese, grated (or another good cheese such as vintage cheddar)
1 to 1½ cups buttermilk (or yoghurt)

Preheat the oven to 230 degrees C (if your oven is an old one like mine) and lightly grease a baking tray.

Place the flours, chives (if using, spices, salt and 100g grated cheese into a large bowl. Add the butter and rub the butter in with your fingers. (I think it was quite clumpy, especially as I used warm soft butter rather than cold hard butter but don't try this at home if you are wise!)

Now the recipe said to add a cup of buttermilk and add more if needed. I thought it looked dry and added the full 1½ cups. My resulting dough was quite soft, which might be why it needed a bit longer. Use a butter knife to gradually incorporate the milk into the flour mixture. The butter knife is to stop you overmixing so just mix till it comes together.

Scrape the dough onto a flour board and gently knead just until it becomes a smooth ball. Roll out with lots of flour to about 2cm high (or maybe 1½cm). Use a floured scone cutter to cut out circles and cluster on the greased tray. (You could also make it into a round circle and mark wedges with a sharp knife.) I lightly brushed the scones with buttermilk and scattered with the remaining cheese.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until the cheese is golden brown on top and the scones are golden brown on the bottom. Wrap in a teatowel until you are ready to serve. Break open with your hands and smear with butter and/or your choice of spread. Best served warm on the day of baking.

On the Stereo:
The Early Years: Roxy Music

out and about over the long weekend

2010-03-09T20:07:00+00:00

I've already blogged about the delicious lasagna at the vegie bar, but we ate at a few other places over the weekend!

After the storm on Saturday, we didn't want to venture too far from home so we popped on over to the EBC.

Trashy and familiar, I elected to eat the classic vegan parma at the EBC. Danni went for the shepherd's pie (TVP and potatoes and vegan cheese, I think) from the specials board. This was really tasty!

We shared a cherry ripe cheesecake. Who could go past such a delight?

I know several people have had some terrible service at the EBC lately, but Saturday night our service was prompt and friendly, some of the bar staff were even cheerful!

Maybe it was the weather?

Went to Shakahari, had the Kali Tunis, which was delicious (oh Malaysian curries, I love you), light but with a chilli bite that didn't hit until after. I know it's hard to see, but it's at the back of the photo! Oh, composition! My strawberry daiquiri was a bit light on with the alcohol, but my mango crumble was delicious, and Danni's highlight of the meal.

Also went to Lord of the Fries (Melbourne Central), I have got to stop ordering a burger and sharing a box of chips just with Danni, it is too much delicious trashy food, and I feel uncomfortable for ages.

Failed to get a seat at A Minor Place, this is what happens when you try to do brunch on a public holiday in Brunswick.

Meal lowlight of the weekend: going to Sugardough with J and dB just before Danni's family arrived, and the vegan cake sitting there on display, but not being allowed to eat it. Just cut the cake for me! LET ME EAT IT, SUGAR DOUGH.

We actually considered buying the whole cake, and in hindsight, probably should have. Because they're DELICIOUS.

East Brunswick Club
280 Lygon Street
East Brunswick

Shakahari
201-203 Faraday St
Carlton

Lord of the Fries
Knox Lane
Melbourne Central

Sugardough
163 Lygon St
Brunswick East

Vegetables with tahini dressing and pickled radish

2010-03-09T14:44:00+00:00

This was one arse-kickingly amazing dinner - the kind of meal that makes you think all is right with the world. The tartness of the radish complements the creamyness of the dressing and fresh crunch of the veggies.

You can use whatever veggies you have - I happened to have patty pan squash, zucchini and broccoli that needed using. Serve over rice or soba noodles.

You'll need:
vegetables of your choice, enough for 2 people
1 clove of garlic
oil
Mince the garlic and cut the veggies into chunks. Heat the oil in a pan and add garlic and veg, stir frying until just cooked.

For the sauce you'll need:
2 - 3 tbs tahini
1 tbs rice vinegar
1 tbs olive oil (or water)
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbs dark soy sauce (or tamari)
2 tsp sugar
In a microwave safe glass jar add about 2 tsp of water to the vinegar and sugar. Heat a little and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the remaining ingredients, screw on the lid and shake until all ingredients are uniformly combined. You can thin the sauce out a little if need be by adding a little more water, or thicken it by adding more tahini. Serve over your cooked veg, and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Pickled radishes

2010-03-09T14:25:00+00:00

On the same dumpstering expedition that gave me this delicious fruit salad, I salvaged a bunch of slightly withered radishes. There were so many bunches sitting there, but at the time I wasn't sure what I would end up doing with them. In retrospect I should have grabbed them all, because I've recently discovered I'm addicted to:

Pickled radish!

How beautiful are they? And they're so insanely easy to make. When I went searching for a recipe to follow, I had to check a few just to make sure I wasn't being tricked. I didn't really measure out quantities, just added suggested ingredients in quantities I thought would taste nice. This recipe was the most helpful, even though the author opted for quartered radishes rather than sliced.

Basically I started by topping and tailing my radishes (offering my scraps to my housemate's bunnies), then thinly sliced them. In a dry frying pan (i.e. no oil) I toasted about a teaspoon of black mustard seeds and a tablespoon of coriander seeds until fragrant. In a bowl I combined about half a cup of Japanese seasoned rice vinegar with an equal amount of white vinegar, and warmed this slightly in the microwave. Then I added about 4 tablespoons of sugar and one tablespoon of salt, stirring to dissolve completely. I threw the sliced radish in a CLEAN jar with the toasted seeds and poured the vinegar mixture over the top. On went the lid and into the fridge for at least a day.

The colour in the skins leached out and dyed everything a really lovely pink. These are rather tart, and will soften but retain a really pleasant crunch. Serve them on the side of anything, or eat them on their own for a rush.

Bali Part II

2010-03-08T18:23:00+00:00

Boy have I had it with Blogger! I was very tempted to turn to Word Press today, although when I tried to download the zipped file (for Word Press) I couldn't work it out (in my defence we were on the way out, so I didn't spend to much time on it!). My issue with Blogger is still the photos issue- it won't recognise newly uploaded photos from iphoto- even if I turn it off and restart it! Grrr! This is why I have not posted so much! So I just worked out a L-O-N-G way of getting them to be able to be uploaded. So annoying, but they are here!

Here are the rest of my Bali photos. I am going to overload you with photos today, hope you don't mind! They are my favourite ones - some about food, others about fun. I hope you enjoy!

This is one of my meals at an Indian restaurant BEFORE I discovered where the locals eat! It was nice, just not very exciting.

As you know, I rarely include photos of myself (I HATE photos of myself!) but I just HAD TO include this one! The Buzz Lightyear backpack was what I was using to carry my stuff around Bali. After making a couple of purchases at this market stall, the lady asked if she could have the backpack for her son who was starting his FIRST day of school the next day. It didn't take long to convince me (how could I deny that request??) and I unloaded all of my stuff into the big black plastic bag she gave me. Little did I know that I would not be able to find a new backpack that I liked (for quite a few days actually!!) and I had to carry ALL my stuff from Poppy's Lane back to our hotel a few hours later!

Here we were at Water Bom Park which was directly across from our hotel! (We ended up coming here twice!). Tweenie had ordered Gado Gado once before and liked it, so she thought I would be a good veg option here. Unfortunately this version was waaaaayyyyyy too hot for her (and they had mixed in egg to it). As you can tell from the look on her face she did not enjoy it!

Snakefruit

Rambutan

Mangosteen

Tamarillo

Tweenie trying some fruit. There was also mangos, passionfruits among others

These photos are all at the start of the BEST day I had in Bali. We were picked up and driven out of Bali for about an hour before we stopped here. This was only the first stop for the day. There was coffee and hot cocoa testing (which I didn't try because I hate hot drinks) before we moved onto this section where we could taste all of this amazing fruit and then purchase it for about $A1 per kilo! The range was amazing and exotic! I ended up purchasing quite a few kilos of fruit which we happily munched on for days!

On the ground near the fruit were these chilli's drying in the sun. Such brilliant colours.

They also sold this AMAZING chocolate! All VEGAN! I bought 2 blocks (and didn't take long to gobble it all up!).

We were then taken to the restaurant at the bottom of the volcano for breakfast. It was here that I discovered Pineapple Jam! One of the workers raced up to the local mart and bought me 2 jars of it (which I ate before we left Bali - it was a delicious addition to the hotel's breakfasts).

The main event of the day was a couple of hours bike ride through some local villages. My whole family and a couple of my aunt's friends went along for this adventure (there were 13 of us all together). It was sooooo much fun! The bloke who runs it uses locals to help out when they have a big group. The business was called Celebrity Cycling Tours and I highly recommend them. Riding through the little villages with children waving and shouting 'Hello' to us was great! It was the 'culture shock' I was aiming for with my kids. They loved it too and had no trouble with cycling for that long (it does help that our bikes are our main source of transport here!).

This was THE highlight of the day. We completed the ride by stopping at the tour owner's house where his mum and sister had cooked a feast for us. When we booked (the cycling tour) we let them know that 4 of us were vegan and they said it would be no problem catering for us. I was AMAZED at the wonderful array of vegan food available to eat - it was at least 50-50 with omni food (I was preparing myself for rice and a veggie dish). The other bonus was that a lot of the others didn't like the fresh coconut so I gorged myself with fine food and extra coconut milk. If you ever go to Bali, go on this cycling tour! I can't recommend them highly enough!

Ugg! Sorry for the direction of the photo! Mongoo chocolate from the department store next to the hotel (we stayed at the Bali Garden Resort) as recommended by Lisa.

Awesome local food parcels by the pool of the hotel! This is what we lived on for lunch and dinner once I discovered where the local food was! Each parcel was less than $A1!!!!!!!!!

This was at the monkey forest. Sooo cute!! I was a bit reluctant to go here, thinking it was some sort of exploited zoo, but it turns out that they are free. There were so many monkeys!

After the monkey forest (which was after the wood carving place- they are amazing carvers!) our driver took us to Tanna Lot. It is a fascinating temple built in the ocean that can only be accessed during low tide. We wanted to get there for sunset (as did a million other tourists!) as the sun sets directly behind the temple providing a beautiful backdrop.

Although the picture quality isn't the best, I love this photo! It is of us with my Aunty Tina, Uncle Mike and their grandson Dylan (who they care for full time). They are my favourite relations and were my rock when all the shit blew up with my (ex) family. Love you all!

So there you have it....the best pics of my time in Bali. Of course there are a million and one other photos (I WAS there for 12 days) but rather than bore you with them (like a grandma with baby photos!) I have chosen the ones that mean the most to me. Hope you enjoyed them.

Tahn

Panzanella and return to work

2010-03-08T11:30:00+00:00

It is now about a month since I returned to work after almost 12 months at home with Sylvia. I have had a few questions about how I am going so I thought I would tell you by comparing it to food. (That is the fun of a food blog!)

Firstly let me tell you how lovely it is to be able to ride my bike to work a couple of days a week. It is hard to find time to ride a bike with a baby and I am much less fit than I was. So it is a joy to fly along the bike paths, past the traffic and the trams where I have sat and gazed upon cyclists in nostalgia.

Like my dad used to say when taking us to his old haunts, I know this place like the back of my hand. If I had been wiser when I was younger I would have reminded my dad that hands develop lines, spots and scars with age. There are a few changes along my route, mostly the improvements of the council. I have changed far more than the bike paths. I am less fit and still need to get my bike serviced properly. But I know where to slow, when to race a train, where the road slopes slightly uphill and where is the best place to turn.

My comfort food, that is simple enough to do without thinking, is pasta and bottled pasta sauce. It is similar to riding home and finding you can't remember a moment of the ride because your mind was elsewhere but the body just ploughed on like a homing pigeon. Just cook the pasta and throw in the sauce. I especially love 'fresh' ravioli, which cooks really quickly. Last weekend I decided I didn't have the energy to cook and would just throw together pasta in pasta sauce. Easy peasy! Of course when you give food to Sylvia it can look unfamiliar. (She ate a few ravioli but wasn't too keen)

Then I saw the stale sourdough bread from Andre's and remembered the panzanella I had eaten at Each Peach recently. It is something that I have often seen but never attempted. I felt quite unsure of how much to soak the bread in the dressing. I had a quick look at the internet and found a recipe by Johanna at the Passionate Cook. Not only did it have tomato, cucumber and bread but also pesto and red capsicum. These unexpected ingredients took the salad above the ordinary and made it interesting. Plus they were residing in my fridge, waiting for meaning to be bestowed.

So it is with my workplace. There are familiar ingredients but it is hard to recognise. One would think that a return to work would mean slotting back into place. However my job has continually changed since I started in my research centre about 6 years ago. I still struggle to describe my job. Now it is even more complicated because we are entering a new funding round with our centre's life extended and expanding into an additional institute as well.

You might call it the OWL Institute - as in Only Worriers and Lunatics - ie if you aren't a lunatic you are worrying about the others who are. Though of course everyone thinks they are a worrier and everyone else is a lunatic. Don't they? Seriously though, if you want to find out a little about where I work, you could do worse than to peruse this article.

Back to the panzanella, it was wonderful. The bread was rescued with the tart vinaigrette that coated it but it retained a little resistance to the teeth. I felt it was quite an appropriate use for my stale bread. No heating bread on low in the oven to make it take like stale bread. No, my bread had just been hanging about too long and was in danger of being binned. E was a bit less keen on the salad. He liked everything but the bread. I think next time I will serve his without bread. No point in throwing pearls before swine.

The panzanella salad was a wonderful interesting accompaniment to the pasta. However, when I hear the Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times, I prefer an interesting dinner to an interesting workplace. I am sure that work will settle down somewhat over the next few months but meanwhile I hope I will keep feeling inspired about dinner.

I am sending the salad to Susan of Wild Yeast for her weekly YeastSpotting, which features all things yeasty around the blogosphere, even ways of making dishes with yeast products such as bread!

Panzanella
serves 2 as a main course on a hot summer's day
Adapted from The Passionate Cook

2 thick slices stale sourdough bread, chopped
½ cucumber (about 2 inches), cut into chunks
1 large tomato, cut into chunks
½ red pepper, cut into chunks
1 spring onion, finely chopped

For the vinaigrette:

2 tbsp red wine vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp seeded mustard
2 tbsp pesto (preferrably home-made but I used a chunky basil and cashew dip that is not technically pesto but is close enough for jazz)

Combine all vegetables in a bowl and pour over the vinaigrette ingredients. Toss well. Just before serving, fold in the stale bread pieces (Johanna says to decorate with fresh basil but I didn't have any on hand).

On the Stereo:
The Best of Emerson Lake and Palmer: ELP

vegie bar ii

2010-03-07T22:45:00+00:00

I've been to Vegie Bar three times in the last fortnight! This is more than I ever have previously!

The first visit was because I was working in the area, and feeling a little unwell I had their soup of the day. 12pm on a Wednesday afternoon, the service was good and it was kind of quiet, and the pumpkin soup was just what I needed to get through the day. No photos, but thanks for the soup.

The second visit was with T, who met me after my FOE shift last week to borrow a book and to hang. We wandered in to Vegie Bar because I knew there'd be desserts I could eat, and it was close by. This crumble was lovely! Not the greatest crumble ever, and a bit runnier than I like my crumbles, but the rhubarb was tart and it was quite nice.

The third visit was this morning with Danni's parents and one (1) sibling, who are here visiting. We've eaten other places whilst they've been here, which I will review in a bit (they're all the standards that we visit quite often), but I needed to mention what I had for lunch:

Let me describe this piece of magnificence for you. This vegan lasagna (at only $12 from the specials board) featured seitan and smoked tofu bolognaise (OMG), with a bechamel sauce, and was covered in vegan cheese and more of the bolognaise. It was served with a light, crisp garlic bread, and a fairly average garden salad. But this lasagna was amazing. The best I've eaten in an absolute age. I would eat it again tomorrow, definitely.

Danni ordered the tofu wrap, and she was totally jealous of my lunch, though she says hers was perfectly fine. Fine but not AMAZING WOW.

Don't fear! I'm not suddenly in love with the Vegie Bar. But it was good. Maybe I think more highly of it than I used to.

Previous visit to Vegie Bar here.

The Vegie Bar
378 Brunswick Street
Fitzroy

Pho happy

2010-03-07T19:16:00+00:00

There were too many puns to choose from when naming this post. I settled on this one because this is exactly what I felt eating this: happiness. This is my first pho experience and, thanks to Louise who created this incredible meal, I am now completely hooked on the stuff. For those of you who don't know what I'm taking about, pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup eaten pretty much every day, and traditionally made from beef. This version contains a slow-simmered broth of charred garlic, ginger and onion, veggie stock, star anise, ground coriander, cloves, black pepper and chili. Rice noodles sit in the bottom of the bowl, while mushrooms and tofu puffs form the 'meat' portion. Fresh bean shoots, coriander and mint make up the garnish, and lemon juice is squeezed over the top. Holy crap, it's so good!

WHB Potluck pumpkin cheesecake brownies

2010-03-07T13:50:00+00:00

Baking for a cheesy potluck doesn't sound too hard until you hear it is vegan and gluten free. Last Friday, Kristy held a vegan potluck that was to have a cheesy theme but meanwhile she was diagnosed with celiacs and the gluten free theme took over. But there were still a few cheesy dishes on the rugs. My offering was a work-in-progress pumpkin cheesecake brownie.

Pumpkin cheesecake brownies is something I have wanted to bake for eons so this seemed like a good opportunity, even if it would not include wheat flour or cream cheese. However, I couldn't find a vegan gluten free recipe so I had to create one by adapting and adjusting other recipes. I was a little nervous about how it would work and did one trial run.

I have had success with substituting banana for egg and besan for wheat flour so I used this tried and trusted wisdom to adapt the brownie part of a pumpkin cheesecake brownie recipe. I found that most vegan cheesecake recipes had tofutti cream cheese in them but I felt that the more processed foods I used, the greater risk of a forbidden ingredient sneaking in. And I was curious about making it from scratch. Ricki had a Vegan Farmer's Cheesecake that was made with tofu and cashew butter. I skimped on the sweetener and left out the lemon juice. Big mistake!

I was glad I hadn't taken this one along. The brownie base worked fine. The cheesecake part was too much tofu and too little anything else. The swirls looked pretty but there was a lot of tofu filling. I would have liked a few more trial runs. However there is only so much dodgy test brownie I can eat through, even if it is relatively low in fat and sweetener.

I decided that to try and make a brownie virtuously healthy as well as gluten free and vegan was too much of a challenge. I also looked for more cheesecake ideas. I found a creamy cashew cheesecake on veganbaking.net that involved making your own cashew cream cheese. While that wasn't exactly what I had in mind, I did find inspiration in the use of more cashews and some lemon juice and nutritional yeast.

You may gasp in horror at the idea of nutritional yeast in a sweet brownie. I did at first. But one of the questions I kept asking myself in this quest is: what are the flavours in cheesecake that I was trying to reproduce? Nutritional yeast and lemon juice seemed to get me closer to what I was after. I also roasted the pumpkin to give a deeper flavour and less watery texture.

The brownie took forever to cook through the second time. I think the pumpkin cheesecake mixture was too soft and in future would probably add more soy flour (I have amended it from 1 to 2 tablespoons below). The whole slice was soft and crumbly when I cut it and was definitely better for sitting for a day or two. I also need to improve my marbling skills as my swirls still weren't deep enough but were far better than my first attempt.

I had intended to also make a soba noodle salad but upon arriving home on Friday night after work (having made my pumpkin cheesecake brownie the night before) I found that Sylvia was in need of my attention. She seems to have cottoned on to the idea that when I go out the front door it might be a long time til I return. (She even howled this morning when I went out to get the paper.) So there was no time for salad and there were tears when I left.

When I arrived at the picnic in Princes Park, the tartan rugs were unfurled on the grass there was a continual stream of people arriving with interesting food in plastic tubs. I thought I would take a photo of my plate of food but there were quite a few additions that required another photo. So much good food. Some of the food you can see on my plate are Steph's sushi and nacho dips, Kristy and Toby's goats cheese, Vicki's spinach rolls, Carla's rice salad, Michael's cheese and sausage cocktails.

Yes, that's right! Vegan, gluten-free sausage and cheese cocktails! What a classy mix of kitsch and gf/vegan cred. In fact, I felt quite impressed looking across the rug at all the amazing food to think how well one could eat on a vegan and gluten free diet with a little effort. It was also a great learning experience of the sort of foods a diet might include and exclude. I was impressed at the firm little cheese squares on Michael's sticks but also surprised to hear that Chinese five spice is not gluten free.

Most people brought their own plates and cutlery but I had some plastic spoons that had been kicking around my house. I used these to put in each dip so that I could spoon a decent portion onto my plate because I was too far away to keep leaning across and dipping into them. One of the dips was the walnut pate that Jo had made. I loved the thin layer of jelly across the top that made it look almost too carnivorously real. But the soft vegan pate was as wonderful as the presentation. (Would love this recipe!)

There were lots of other great foods that I didn't get a chance to photograph, taste or find out who was the creator. Craig's crispy potato cakes were a huge hit (made with besan instead of flour and double fried!) When the crumbed tofu and lots more salads came after I had been digging into the sweet food I had to switch back to savoury. I then went back to the sweet food. I loved Kristy's Iced Rooibos Blueberry Tea especially because I misplaced my water bottle. But I didn't get to taste her blueberry cheesecake ice cream.

I took even less photos of the sweet food. Being a chocoholic I couldn't resist tasting all the chocolate slices. (I wasn't the only one as I heard someone say in delight that they hadn't had chocolate caramel slice since they went vegan!) My favourite is photographed above and if anyone is posting (or emailing) the recipe I would love to get it. Beside it is Cindy's amazing rasbperry and coconut ice cream. I should have tried the muffins and pear torte but it was just all too overwhelming.

It was a most pleasant evening sitting on the rugs as twilight fell, discussing dodgy doctors, applesauce and knitting, among other things. One of the strange things about such a gathering is being introduced to others as Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe - something that would not be understood in any other setting. I have said it before and I will say it again, food bloggers are such great people to spend time with and it is a joy to be able to taste some of the food that I see them posting.

All too soon I had to return home to my little blog orphan who loudly cried to demonstrate her relief to see me home. Or maybe she was just cross that she didn't get to come along and sample the food! I wouldn't blame her!

Though it is work in progress, I am sending this recipe to Susan of the Well Seasoned Cook who is hosting Weekend Herb Blogging (#223) this week. The event, coordinated by Haalo and founded by Kalyn is all about featuring interesting ways to use vegetables, fruit and herbs. I think that this is one of the most unusual ways I have even used pumpkin and I hope it might be inspiration for others.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies

Pumpkin cheesecake layer:

150g silken tofu
250g cashew butter
¾ cup pumpkin puree (I roasted chunks of pumpkin in olive oil and then lightly mashed them with a fork)
¼ cup maple syrup
2 tbsp soy flour
1 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp mixed spice

Brownie batter:

250g margarine, melted or softened
¾ cup brown sugar
1 banana, mashed
¾ cup besan (chickpea flour)
¾ cup cocoa powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp ground wattleseed

Preheat oven to 180 C and grease and line a slice tin (18 x 28cm).

To make cheesecake layer: Blend all ingredients in a food processor till well combined. Taste to check for sweetness and flavour. Adjust flavourings if necessary.

To make brownie layer: Beat together margarine and brown sugar in a medium mixing bowl until smooth and sugar is incorporated. (I just used a spoon to do this but you could use electric beaters.) Stir in banana and then add in dry ingredients and stir until combined.

To assemble: Spread about two thirds of chocolate brownie batter into prepared tin, and spoon cheesecake batter over. Dollop remaining brownie batter over cheesecake batter. Swirl the batters together by running a butter knife back and forth through the tin.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until center is set. (NB the first time it took me 40 minutes but the second time it took 40 minutes plus 30 minutes at 150 C and it still wasn't quite as firm as I would like - which is why it is work in progress. But I think the little bit of extra soy flour I have added to the cheesecake ingredients here might help - or you might even add a little more.) Cool completely in tin. It is best to sit for a day or two before cutting and serving.

On the Stereo:
Hits: Joni Mitchell

Vegan Sydney – Newtown edition

2010-03-07T11:50:16+00:00

My first meal in Sydney was a pre-bake-off breakfast at Naked Espresso. I intended to have a light meal of toast but when confronted with the excellent menu I threw caution to the wind and had a sizeable tofu scramble breakfast.

The fu scram is yum, the beans are yum, the mushrooms are GREAT and there is also a little bit of highly roasted and delicious pumpkin that stole the show. And it comes in at under $15. Maybe even under $14, from memory.

Also in Newtown, I had a foodie night out with Leigh. First stop was Green Palace for their deep-fried sugar cane prawns:

ZOMG! And why yes, that is fake prawn on a stick of sugar cane, crumbed and deep fried. Sweet, crispy, amazing. Could have eaten ten of these and gone back for more.

Next was Basil Pizza, where we shared… bruschetta pizza!

Yuummmm, good invention. Nice fresh tomatoes and lots of garlic.

We also shared this one, which I chose because of the name – Vegan Lovers:

With tofu, Cheezley, grilled eggplant, artichoke and sun-dried tomatoes. It was gooey and cheesy and excellent. I don’t really miss cheesy pizzas but this totally hit the spot.

After dinner, feeling full but game, Leigh and I skipped across the road to Green Gourmet for ice cream.

Two flavours there – strawberry, and goji berry and coconut. Both were creamy and delicious but the strawberry really stole the show for me.

If I moved to Sydney I’d have to live in Glebe or Newtown, full of vegan yums!

Naked Espresso, 126 King St, Newtown
Green Palace, 182 King St, Newtown
Green Gourmet, 115 King St, Newtown

February 25-26, 2010: Raspberry rippled coconut icecream

2010-03-07T10:20:00+00:00

My contribution to the gluten-free picnic potluck was a conciliatory offering to Craig. It was he who hosted the previous potluck picnic and encouraged the bringing of icecream. Then I got all avant garde, making savoury sundaes, and unwittingly chose flavours he detests. So this time I let him set the agenda, and he put coconut and raspberry icecream at the top of the list.

Kristy helped out by passing on the coconut ice cream recipe from The Vegan Scoop. What I ended up doing what quite different but it did confirm that this was another occasion for arrowroot. I stirred the arrowroot into a hot saucepan of sweetened coconut cream and almost immediately had misgivings - it wasn't mixing through evenly, with flecks of well-set coconut cream scattered through the 'custard'. I figured that a bit of judicious sieving should do the job later on, as it always does in my traditional icecream custards.

Matters deteriorated when I pulled the coconut cream out of the fridge later that day. The arrowroot had now set the entire custard into an unattractive, uneven pile of goop. (I wish I had thought to photograph it for you!) There was no way I could push this through a sieve. Michael had the right idea, though - I could strain it if I took to it with the stick blender at the same time! I blended and pushed and poured what I could into the icecream maker, hoping for the best.

What came out can only be described as THE BEST. The best vegan icecream I reckon I've ever made. One of the best icecreams I've made at all. Once its effects had been smoothed out and churned up, the arrowroot gave this icecream a gorgeously fluffy texture. It's like nothing I've previously experienced in a homemade icecream. Even as it melted, the coconut cream retained a frothiness that reminded me eerily of shaving cream. The approach was a little haphazard but I've high motivation to refine it - I'm planning to use this as a base for a few more vegan icecreams.

And the raspberry ripple? It's easy, and it's from this recipe. I doubt you'll find a more vibrantly coloured and flavoured counterpoint to the coconut cream anywhere.

Raspberry-rippled coconut icecream

coconut icecream:
2 tablespoons arrowroot
1 litre coconut cream
3/4 cup castor sugar

raspberry ripple:
1/2 cup water
40g castor sugar
juice of 1 lemon
250g raspberries

Stir the arrowroot into 1/4 cup of the coconut cream. Heat the remaining coconut cream and the sugar in a medium saucepan, taking them off the heat as soon as they begin to boil. Whisk in the arrowroot mixture. Chill the coconut 'custard' thoroughly.

While the coconut's chilling, make the raspberry ripple. Combine the water, sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan and bring them to the boil. Simmer until the syrup has reduced by half, then turn off the heat. Blitz it in a food processor with the raspberries until smooth. Strain the syrup to remove the raspberry seeds.

When the coconut custard is very cold, strain it through a sieve, using a stick blender to help it through. Churn the icecream in an icecream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Layer the coconut icecream and raspberry ripple in a container. Use a spoon the swirl the two flavours more if you like. Freeze the rippled icecream until firm, at least 4 hours.

Monk Bodhi Dharma and Toby's Operation

2010-03-06T21:44:00+00:00

On Friday night last week Toby found out that he would be going in for an operation on Monday morning, we guessed it would be a while before he could eat out and so decided to make the most of the situation by eating out a lot last weekend. The first place he chose was the relatively new veg cafe- Monk Bohi Dharma. Based on the name and the menu on their website I was expecting a hippyish place but instead found this hipster interior:
Toby was a little bit more aware as he had heard about their coffee, he ordered a 3/4 soy latte which he was said was up there in quality with seven seeds coffee (his fav). I ordered a gluten free orange and almond muffin, it was delish, incredibly moist and had a sweet orange glace on top. Anyone who does a vegan g/f muffin gets my thumbs up.
We shared the christian and moore stew from the lunch menu which consisted of black beans, veggies and rice with homemade mango chutney on top, the stew was very tasty and had a rich thyme flavour and you could actually feel the mango pieces in your mouth. Between sharing the muffin and the stew I was full. I had the genmachai tea- japanese green tea with roasted rice, it was awesome.
The breakfast menu consists of things like toast with feta and avocado and bircher muesli that don't appear to be vegan or gluten free friendly but as the waiter explained most of the breakfast options can be adapted to be vegan and a few can be made g/f. The lunch menu on the other hand tends to be mostly g/f and vegan. I think it's worth crossing the river for.

Toby has come out of the hospital and is fine now but won't be able to cook, do any housework or much else for about 6 weeks so you might not being hearing from us as frequently.

Monk Bodhi Dharma
Rear 202 Carlisle St, Balaclava
9534 7250
www

Bowl of Soul

2010-03-06T16:26:00+00:00

Last weekend Greg & I had to go to Port Melbourne around lunch time to pick up a change table that I bought on ebay so decided to go to Bowl of Soul after reading so many good things about it. I don't think that I have been to Port Melbourne for around 6 years when I used to live over that way & it really feels like a completely different world - but that might also have had to do with the fact that my change table was bought from a family that had a nanny.

Anyway, we found Bowl of Soul really easily & it is just a little place but really nice & the staff are so lovely & friendly. Neither of us could decide between the Stake Out Sandwich & the Satay Chicken Burger so got both & shared. It smelled so good when they were cooking & they were both really tasty. Everyone raves about the stake out sandwich but whatever they use for their "chicken" is really delicious & the satay sauce wasn't too full on & rich so I preferred the satay chicken burger. I think they were both under $12 which seemed liked pretty good value to me, especially since we were both so full after that we didn't eat dinner.

Stake Out Sandwich

Satay 'Chicken' Burger

Bowl of Soul

118 Bridge Street

Port Melbourne

9645 2470

Linktown 6 Mar 2010 edition

2010-03-06T08:56:35+00:00

Free fruit salad

2010-03-05T18:45:00+00:00

Yup, everything you see here was free - dumpstered rock melon, mango and papaya (all in AMAZING condition, dressed with mint and lime juice from someones garden. This was my breakfast one morning this week, and I think the fact that it cost me nothing, and most of it was saved from being wasted, made it taste even sweeter. If this fruit was just a fraction of what gets thrown away at ONE supermarket on ONE afternoon, imagine how much food gets wasted in a week; a month; a year. Makes your head hurt, doesn't it?

plush pizza iii, hawthorn

2010-03-05T11:42:00+00:00

I keep forgetting to blog about our most recent visit to Plush Pizza!

This was Tuesday last week, after my parents and my sister went back to Perth. I was not feeling well, and considered suggesting that some errant family member had left me with a cold!

So anyway, as I wasn't feeling very well we only shared one large and one small pizza between the three of us. We picked the primavera pizza for the large, and (OF COURSE) the garlic for the small.

The primavera was okay, but nothing special. A perfectly servicable pizza, but if I'm going to go to a vegetarian pizza place I don't really want pizza that I can get at any old pizza place.

Still want to try the chunky and the aztec. And some other things.

Previous visits: one, two.

Plush Pizza
85 Burwood Road
Hawthorn

GF options (including bases) available

Horse Bazaar - Melbourne

2010-03-05T10:24:00+00:00

I stopped into Horse Bazaar for a cider last night after work and discovered they now do food (the last few times I went there they only did bar snacks?). I inhaled the vegetarian don buri with noodles, teriyaki sauce and tofu. Sprinkled with currents, sesame seeds and pine nuts, it was seriously delicious. I love Horse Bazaar, the staff are friendly, the space is really great and people who go there are generally on the side of younger hipster business people so not too rowdy and not too nausea inducing either. I'm going to hang out there more often!

Deets: 397 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne 3000, (03) 9670 2329 http://horsebazaar.com.au/
$$: Donburi $8, pint of Bulmers $9

February 26, 2010: Gluten free picnic - Colby 'cheese' and sausages

2010-03-05T05:17:00+00:00

When Kristy first scheduled this picnic potluck, the broad theme of the night was going to be 'cheese'. Between the idea and the event, however, she was diagnosed as coeliac, so the potluck theme broadened out to include anything and everything gluten-free. It was a fantastic picnic, with everything from potato cakes to icecream - you can see all the pictures here. I decided to try to cover both bases (and to produce something ridiculously camp) and made gluten-free sausage and cheese bites. These turned out pretty well - the sausages tasting not too different to the gluteny ones I've raved about before, while the cheese was a passable approximation of the real thing. The potluckers loved the stylish presentation, but Carla had it right when she suggested serving them stuck into an orange next time. I was kicking myself.

The cheese recipe was lifted straight from Tahn, and relies on cashews and agar for its textural weirdness. It's pretty simple to make and the result is convincing enough in texture if not quite taste - I think I can work on the flavour though, maybe upping the nooch or playing around with some spices. Still, offset by the spicy sausages, the little cheese cubes worked well.

The sausage recipe came from Cloth and Fodder, and uses basically the same approach as our previous sausages, but with TVP and chickpea flour taking the place of beans and gluten flour. It's another really simple recipe - just combine all the ingredients, wrap them up into little cylinders and steam them and you're done. And they're excellent - a tasty combination of herbs and spices, a nice hit from the chilli and an appropriately sausagey texture.

We served our little skewers with Chinese-style bbq sauce, which we discovered at the last minute was another gluten-free failure. Turns out Chinese five spice has some sort of wheat derived corn starch in it. Bizarre.

Colby Cheese (recipe from Vegan Family vs Omni World)

1.5 cups water
1.5 tablespoons agar powder
1/2 roasted red capsicum
1/2 cup raw cashews
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons tahini
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder

Soak the agar in the water for at least fifteen minutes and then bring the mix to the boil, simmering for about 10 minutes - until the agar is dissolved completely (you need to keep stirring).

Once the mix has cooled a little (not too much - it'll set!), pour it into a food processor and add the remaining ingredients. Whizz for a few minutes until everything is smooth. Pour into a lightly oiled tupperware container and cool, before covering and refrigerating to set.

Gluten-free sausages (recipe via Cloth an Fodder)

200 grams TVP (check to make sure it's gluten free!)
1.5 cups chickpea flour
1/4 cup Massel 'beef' stock
1 onion, sliced finely
2 tablespoons fennel seeds
2 teaspoons ground pepper
2 tablespoons sweet paprika
1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes (adjust to taste - ours seem to be crazy hot, so 1 tsp was enough)
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon salt
8 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons tamari

Prepare the TVP as directed (I just soaked mine in hot water for five-ten minutes), making sure any excess water is drained off.

Combine the TVP with all the other ingredients in a large bowl, adding more chickpea flour to dry out the mixture if necessary.

Lay out squares of aluminium foil and scoop little sausage-sized logs of the mixture onto the base of each square, before rolling the foil up and twisting the ends. Steam these little foil cylinders for about half an hour each and you've got yourself some sausages. You can fry or bbq the end result, but it's not crucial, we just used them as they came out of their little parcels for our toothpick snacks.

For all the potluck action, see Steph and Vicki (again)

Sylvia's green pram cake

2010-03-04T13:38:00+00:00

By now, if you have been reading this blog, you will know it was Sylvia's first birthday last week. I have told you about the morning we spent at Each Peach, the noodles we had for dinner and today I will tell you about the cake. For what are birthdays for if not to eat lots of sugary self-indulgent cake. Sylvia had three cakes. I have photos of them all but the most impressive one is the green pram. This is the one I will tell you how to make below.

But let us start with the cake I made to have with myself and E on her actual birthday. Lately I have discovered some great low sugar muffins and decided to continue in this virtuous vein for her birthday cake. If I ever ever suggest such a thing again, remind me that birthdays mean sugar. So no more cakes that are bitter with blackstrap molasses. I had thought the apple sauce would sweeten the molasses but it was not to be. If you are interested in the recipe, it is the Apple Spice Cake at this group of healthy first birthday cakes but I don't think it is one I will repeat.

I was consoled by the fact that at least it looked pretty, that there was a delicious chocolate cake to come, and that Sylvia had some to eat. But half of it went in the bin. I used beetroot powder to make it look pink but the green icing I had planned to use to decorate it was not the easy-to-use nozzle-on-a-tube that I expected. Thank goodness for hundreds and thousands. Sylvia loved us singing her happy birthday but didn't quite get the blowing out the candle bit.

The next day at child care she had birthday cake #2. I visited to share the cake with Sylvia and her little friends. It was both fun to see all the kids going a bit manic with cake and an eye-opener to see how the staff were managing the allergies of some of the kids in the centre. The cake was a vegan chocolate cake because the centre does not have nuts or eggs due to these being common allergies. We emerged with smears of chocolate icing over both Sylvia and myself.

The main event was a small family party on Sunday afternoon. I made the cake the day before and had some frosting leftover from my camera birthday cake. I liked the idea of the ease of a round cake with a couple of (gluten free) muffins for wheels. It was the decoration that was a challenge. I looked at ideas for pram cakes and liked one with basket weave on it to signify an old fashioned pram. I would love a green wicker pram but I know it would not be practical so I was happy to indulge in a bit of wish fulfillment with the cake.

On the morning of the party I got out my icing gun and leftover frosting and started to experiment. The first drama was that I found out we had no foil to cover the baking tray. Fortunately I had some green cellophane which was a nice base to work on. The frosting worked ok although when I tried to do a frilly outline it was a bit half hearted and by then there was so much frosting on the cake the some of it started to slide down the side. But I have written a step-by-step description below of what I did for the curious.

I also had decided to make cheese scones (coming soon) which were to be made as close to the afternoon tea as possible so they were warm out of the oven. At about 2pm, an hour before everyone was expected, I sent E out of the house with Sylvia in her pram to get her to sleep, and I set about doing some last minute cooking and cleaning.

My mum and dad arrived with my two nieces, Ella and Grace, at 2.30. Luckily I had a distraction for the little girls up my sleeve - a bag of balloons I had found in the bottom of the pantry. It also meant my parents could help with important tasks like the dishes and testing scones. My dad had specially got there early to put up Sylvia's birthday present - a cubby hut (aka Wendy house). At one stage our backyard seemed very full of family helping with the erection of the hut.

The nieces and nephews had lots of fun in the hut. Sylvia went in once and then fell out the door and wailed. Since then she has had a few peeks inside but preferred to eat dirt out of the pot plants. Zinc is also curious about the other white cat peering out the window. Later my nieces and nephews were in Sylvia's bedroom playing with her toys. The nappy change mat became a slide for our giraffes. Apparently my dad walked in and was met with a chorus of "we will put everything back in its place when we finish." Ah bless!

By the time everyone else arrived the table was full of food and for a while I felt I was constantly rearranging to make room for more dishes. In addition to the cheese scones, I had made pumpkin dip, grubs and some gluten free grubs (with Tart n Round spice biscuits instead of marie biscuits). I chopped up lots of vegies and fruit, including many of Sylvia's favourites. My mum brought some gluten free cupcakes and some zucchini fritters with yoghurt dip. Fran's partner, John, made his famous pavlova which was loaded up with berries and cream (but no strawberries for Sylvia).

Before everyone started eating, we lit the candle on the cake and sang happy birthday. Then Sylvia sat in her highchair and had her first taste of pavlova and some of her chocolate birthday cake. She had a taste of the scones but I think most of it landed on the floor, along with quite a few of her pieces of fruit and vegetables. Sylvia was quite happy to show off some of her new skills - clapping, waving, standing without needing something to pull herself up on, and of course the hands in the air in victory at her cleverness.

Sylvia was spoilt with lots of presents from her family on both sides of the world. Sadly her Scottish family couldn't be here but were remembered with her little purple tartan dress that we bought in Scotland on our trip there in November last year. You can see it above. I thought it looked very Mary Queen of Scots with a white lacy collar!

I have had a few questions lately about why I don't put Sylvia's face on the blog. The answer is that when I started my blog I decided not to put faces on it. The internet is a big scary world and I am too suspicious to give strangers pictures of my loved ones. I am happy to give you glimpses to encourage you to imagine just how beautiful my little blue eyed girl is. I especially love hands, which is why I love sharing photos of Sylvia's chubby paws. If I did have a photo it would not be her solemn face when everyone arrived but her laughter and delight with cake all over her face later in the afternoon.

How to Make a Pram Cake

You can use any round cake and muffins. I made a 22cm round chocolate cake using this mud cake recipe but substituting milk for whisky, less sugar (1 1/2 cups) and using less wattleseed. I put in the flour last so I could take some of the mixture out and mix a little besan in to make gluten free wheels. I usually use a gf flour mix but thought I would try besan. It got the thumbs down from one of my nieces who always eats my gluten free baking. (Hey Ella, it might have been a little dry but it was still good with lots of frosting!)

I had at least half of this white chocolate cream cheese frosting that I had stashed in the freezer. It was far too much, which meant I was liberal with the icing when I didn't have a clue what I was doing and also that I didn't need to stress about running out. Yet again I regretted not allowing it to cool before adding the cream cheese because little unmelted bits of white chocolate kept getting stuck in the icing pipe so that suddenly there wasn't much frosting coming out and when the chocolate finally got through I would get a gush of frosting.

I used green cellophane to line a large baking tray (I didn't even bother with sticky tape but just let the weight of the tray weigh it down as I didn't need to move it). I cut a wedge out of the cake as above and positioned the wheels to check out how they looked. As always I used a pastry brush to brush away crumbs before icing. (And I took off the muffin papers.)

Carefully cover the side of the cake with frosting using a butterknife and then cover the wheels in frosting. Press the wheels against the cake. Disclaimer: I was making it for my sister and niece whom I know don't mind their gf baking canoodling with wheat products but if you are making it for gluten free folk you might need to check if this is ok.

Now here is where you will need an icing nozzle that does a basket weave or ribbon. I have an icing gun set that makes life easy. First I covered the body of the pram in horizontal rows of basket weave. I changed the angle of the rows for the hood.

Then I changed to a writing nozzle and piped thin lines vertically. I also piped spokes and tyres on the wheels.

Then I returned to my basket weave nozzle and piped a short strip over each second vertical line on the top row. On the row below I piped strips over every other vertical line. I kept going til I had run out of room on the vertical lines.

Then I got really amateurish and tried to do a frilly edge around the cake and across the mark between the body of the pram and the hood. By then I was running out of patience so it was a bit lackadaisical. Finding the I still had plenty of frosting, I piped a handle and a little birthday message for Sylvia on the cellophane. If you look at the above picture you can see smears of icing on the table where I was testing the icing gun every now and again.

Sylvia was not too fussed by the decoration but she enjoyed us singing happy birthday and loved eating the cake. It is all we can ask of her at this age.

On the Stereo:
Turn it on again: The Hits: Genesis

Vegan Sydney

2010-03-04T09:27:33+00:00

So, you’ve seen the bake-off, you’ve seen the coffee, now on to my magical ‘vegan foods of Sydney’ show and tell.

Breakfast at Well Connected, Glebe. I met a friend there and was surprised to see a vegan tofu scramble on the menu (listed as a ‘healthy option’) – great in an omni venue.

The tofu scramble was HUGE – this pic doesn’t do justice to the size of the dish – and tasty, and filling, and insanely cheap at $9.50.

Lunch at Badde Manors, Glebe. A few doors down from Well Connected is Badde Manors, a pure vego place I’d heard mixed reviews about. And my experience was pretty meh. I had the capsicum and coriander fritters.

The serving was huge, cheap at $10.50 and incredibly bland. Shame, cos I loves me a good fritter.

Lunch at Mother Chu’s. A more successful lunch outing I had was at Mother Chu’s, which I gather is a bit of an institution in Sydney. I had been recommended the salt and pepper tofu but I wanted to try their mock so I had salt and pepper soy strips:

The dish was HUGE and seriously delicious. However, very expensive. The soy strips and rice cost me $23! It’s the priciest mock joint I have ever been in. That said, if I was lunching with someone else I would have got an extra rice and shared the soy strips, the dish was that big.

Snackage at Iku Wholefoods. Expensive! But quite good – wish we had this kind of fast food place in Melbourne.

Sweet potato and ginger millet ball (excellent fresh ginger kick – loved it!), and polenta slice. Both GF. Both surprisingly oily for a health food shop…

Vanilla and maple syrup friand. About which I say… WHO KNEW A FRIAND COULD BE SOOOO GOOD? This was probably the best thing I ate in Sydney. It was perfect.

Well Connected, 35 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe
Badde Manors, 37 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe
Mother Chu’s Vegetarian Kitchen, 367 Pitt St, Sydney
Iku Wholefood, St Martin’s Place, Sydney

Each Peach - baby blocks and ice cream that rocks

2010-03-03T13:34:00+00:00

I am amazed that I have never before seen Each Peach during my frequent trips down Lygon St in East Brunswick but I am glad I have now found it. Last week I asked Yarrow to choose a child friendly place to go for morning tea with Sylvia on her birthday. The cafe had lots of kids toys, a cool retro high chair and her favourite ice cream ever (which I can easily say given that this is the only ice cream she has ever tasted).

The name was a sure sign that we would love it. Sylvia's Scottish gran and grandpa gave her Each Peach Pear Plum and she loves this book. Yarrow knew the owner Helen who is a baker and make the food she serves, apart from the sourdough which comes from Zeally Bay. It was just the place for Sylvia to have fun and for me to debrief with Yarrow about Sylvia's 12 month health check and get some common sense perspective after talking to the fool of a nurse.

While the cafe is kid friendly, there is also much to please adults. In the front room a quilt hangs on the wall made from vintage tea towels. I know my mother in law, who collects tea towels, would love it. There is also a large collection of Helen's cookbooks that are on display. If I ever visit alone, I would love to spend hours browsing through these.

We browsed the blackboard menu to make our orders and then settled in the back room (see top photo). It was as snug and cosy as the front room was bright and airy. We all loved the kiddie corner. There is also a backyard area where you can eat if you fancy some fresh air.

The back room had a doll's house, books, a stroller, table and chairs, stove, everything including the kitchen sink. The corner with the fireplace also had lots of wooden blocks for kids. I was excited by the retro green high chair. Sylvia sat in it while we ate. Later we asked Helen when it was made and she lifted the tray to show that someone had written that it was Gary's highchair from 1956.

Our drinks came first. Yarrow had his coffee in an elegant cup and saucer. We both also had a glass of Pink Drink. This was a juice of watermelon, beetroot and strawberry. I am still not sure of strawberries for Sylvia and asked for a substitute. Helen helpfully suggested blueberries. I loved the metal cups that the juice was served in because they remind me of summer picnics as a child. I shared some with Sylvia but she is still no whizz at drinking out of a cup and most of the pink drink I gave her made bright splotches on her white bib. At least she didn't try and put her fist in it.

I had been tempted to order the avocado and preserved lemon on toast but then Yarrow directed my attention to the panzella. Sylvia's favourite vegetables are tomato and cucumber (though the popularity of cucumber is waning) so I thought this would be something nice to share with her. She ate bits of vegetable while I ate most of the salad. It was a good way to get lots of vegies into a meal and had a tasty vinegary dressing although the bread was a bit soggy for my liking.

Once we had eaten, Sylvia was keen to play. Can you blame her with all those great toys! Yarrow had fun showing her how the toy Kenwood mixer worked. Sylvia also loved the cash register, showing her genetic heritage. I grew up in a family where we once set up a shopping centre in the cubby hut. When I told my sisters, they said how they still loved cash registers and Fran admitted she and her partner fight over who will use the self service register at the supermarket. (I avoid them as I am a luddite through and through.)

What I really loved about the outing was that there were other kids the same age as Sylvia and she had a lovely time playing with them. When the other mothers asked how old she was and we said it was her birthday today, they burst into a rendition of "Happy Birthday". Singing, sugar and self-indulgence are the stuff of birthdays. In that spirit, we also ordered some biscuits.

Yarrow chose an Anzac, Sylvia had a gingerbread dog and I had a chocolate puddle cookie. Yarrow loved his and Sylvia enjoyed her doggie but I found my cookie was a bit dry. It could have been renamed a chocolate drought cookie. So as I left I bought a snickerdoodle because I see these on blogs and have never tasted them. When I had it the next day at work, it was wonderfully buttery and cinnamony so I am ready to see my dry biscuit as an exception.

Yarrow had places to go and left while I paid our part of the meal. As I manoeuvred Sylvia's pram out the door, I noticed rhubarb vanilla ice cream in the on the blackboard in the window. Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that ice cream doesn't feature here often. I am not much of an ice cream fan. But rhubarb ice cream appealed. And it was Sylvia's birthday. The chocolate biscuit had been so disappointing and I had plenty of calories to burn as I walked there and back which was a good 45 minutes walk each way.

Any way I justified it, I had to have the ice cream. I went back inside and got two scoops - rhubarb and vanilla ice cream and organic chocolate sorbet - in a paper cup intending to take it away but ended up finding it easier to eat it in the front room. Both ice creams were superb! The rhubarb ice cream was packed with fruit and the chocolate sorbet was dark and intense and soft. I'm sorry I didn't get a photo.

Sylvia had never tasted ice cream before so I offered her a taste. This is how she often approaches new food: She closes her mouth and refuses to eat it but allows a little to linger on her lips. Then her little tongue flicks out to try it. If she likes it, which she often does, she opens her mouth for the spoon. She ate a little of the ice cream but screwed up her face and gave a little wriggle at it being so cold.

It was a lovely birthday outing for Sylvia's first birthday. I was asked if she knew what it was all about and I realised that for her, every day is all about Sylvia, so it was just another day. But she had fun. I will post about her cakes (all three of them) soon.

Each Peach
506 Lygon Street (near the corner of Albion Street)
East Brunswick 3056
tel: 03 9383 4529
email: eachpeach@bigpond.com

Catch me, catch me! or: I trawl the archives

2010-03-02T21:34:00+00:00

More catch ups, while I'm da mood.

As Buzz and I are still Champions of the Crystal Quest to End Same-Same Cookering, I'll be trying to upload pictures of some of our weekly cookering more regularly - but be warned! I cannot commit to giving a full run-down on each! You shall get quick snappy pithy descriptions and cutting insightful opinions! That is all, comrades!

Rice Queen, June 2009. Oh jeez...

Oh jeez just because of the delay. Rice Queen's staff were able to point out a couple of straight-up vegan dishes on their menu without pausing, and a quick consultation with the kitchen yielded still more. Yes, ladles and jellyspoons, there is more than one main and entree we can eat. Below is a Masala Dosa and a Plantain Curry with lovely little crispy papadums. I'm sure you'll understand that I don't recall specifics. It was good though, and good value. Thanks.

Red Emperor, October 2009

Dislike. We thought Red Emperor was going to be upscale Chinese cuisine, but the interior is very grey-vinyl chairs, tubular metal fixtures and early 1990s furnishings. The service focusses on bringing you steaming towels, but not your beer. And when that beer is poured that it's half head, that beer is not replaced.

So yes, I remember that the beer was poured badly. So sue me.

I also remember that the food was expensive and sub-standard. Below is a cream of corn soup - adequate, and a plate which purported to be a mix of vegetables. They were mixed, but in oval shaped fried balls of ickiness. And that plate cost $32. Don't go. Just don't. Especially on your anniversary.

Prospect Park Potato Salad from Veganomicon, a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away

I'm pretty meh on potato salad. I'm very blergh on mayo. But I thought that this would be a great one to take along to a gathering of omnis because it's familiar and would probably lead to '" Oh, however did you make it without dairy you marvel you?!" comments.

Actually I can't even remember if I took it anywhere and where that anywhere may have been. But I did enjoy the seeded mustard and the explicit instruction in the recipe to grate - and grate only! - the carrot into the salad.

February 21, 2010: Lemon slice, twice

2010-03-02T17:56:00+00:00

You may have noticed the increasing frequency of vegan and gluten-free recipes on this blog. We have a number of friends embarking on such diets (and one even taking on both simultaneously!). I reckon our vegan cooking skills have developed enormously over the past year and I'm keen to become a similarly confident gluten-free cook.

With this in mind, I'm challenging myself to produce a vegan and/or gluten-free version of each 2010 calendar recipe. January was a breeze - the original salad recipe ticked both boxes right away. February brought a lemon slice, with all the wheat flour and egg-and-milk custard you'd expect. Nevertheless, I had a few substitutions in mind and planned to bake half-batches of the original and tinkered-with recipes on the same afternoon.

The base is a relatively typical biscuity affair of butter, sugar, vanilla and flour. It was just as easy to blend together Nuttelex, sugar, vanilla and a gf flour mix with a fork for my alterna-slice. Both versions proved sticky and awkward to mush into their papered loaf tins - I had no hope of pressing them in with my fingers and tried instead to spread them out with the back of the spoon. The more golden-looking one on the left is the original version.

The original came out of the oven looking much more golden again. I'm not sure whether it's the butter or the flour substitute but the alterna-crust barely coloured up at all, even though it was clearly cooked and even starting to dry out.

The lemon custard was always going to need some more creative thinking - I needed something to replace the eggs and ensure it would set. Based on the orange-Szechuan pepper icecream I recently made, I got to thinking about arrowroot. (Why I didn't just think about No Egg powder, I'm not sure.) I just threw it into the vegan 'custard' by the tablespoonful and hoped for the best. This time it was the distinctly golden caramel-looking layer, up against a very eggy-looking classic custard.

I plonked them into the oven and waited. And waited and waited. In fact, I made two careless mistakes that meant these slices were sitting in a ~100°C oven for about half an hour before I got them to the advised temperature. After they'd had their turn and more, I pulled them both out of the oven - the original recipe was looking eggy but well set. By contrast, much of the alterna-custard was still liquid. I was a little disappointed, but not devastated. I figured this kind of baking mis-step would be inevitable on the road to gobble-worthy gluten-free baked goods.

I was pretty surprised when I returned 20 minutes later and discovered that the alterna-custard had set completely as the slice cooled. In fact, this was a rather handsome and tasty lemon jelly-on-shortbread combo! Some of the edges were a touch burnt and the jelly was getting stuck in my teeth but I suspect these both come from over-baking. I think this recipe's just a reduced-bake away from satisfaction. (Well, almost - I committed a gluten-free FAIL by substituting dairy milk with evil, glutinous oat milk. I'll get me some proper gluten-free vegan milk next time. Or even just water - I'm not sure that milk's necessary here at all.)

While I was rather pleased, all up, with my alterna-slice it was clearly not what the original recipe intended. Here the base unexpectedly rose into an almost cakey affair, with the custard forming a thinner frothy layer on top. This was very nice indeed. I wonder if a bit of baking powder in my alterna-slice might encourage this effect. (I'm in two minds as to whether I'd even want that, though.)

I couldn't have asked for more success in my naive conversion of a traditional recipe. Though my new version is a very different beast to the original, it has its own charms. What's more, I've learned a bit about arrowroot along the way and am keen to continue playing with it. I wonder if it'd make a nice agar replacement for that pie I made last year.

Traditional lemon slice
(from Robyn's 2010 recipe calendar)

base
125 g butter, softened
1/4 cup castor sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/3 cups plain flour

filling
4 eggs
1 cup castor sugar
2 tablespoons plain flour
1/2 cup milk
grated rind and juice of 2 lemons

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line the base and sides of a small baking tray with paper (I would use something measuring about 20cm square).

Prepare the base by creaming together the butter, sugar and vanilla - if your butter is well-softened you'll be able to do this by hand with a fork. Sift over the flour and mix it in well. Transfer the mixture to the baking tray, using the back of a spoon to spread it out across the base and ideally also an inch up the sides. Bake the base for about 10 minutes or until it begins to brown. Set the base aside to cool.

Whisk together all of the filling ingredients until well combined and pour them over the base. Bake the slice for a further 20-25 minutes or until just set. Allow the slice to cool before slicing and serving.

Vegan and gluten-free lemon slice

base
125g Nuttelex
1/4 cup castor sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/3 cups gluten-free plain flour

filling
2 tablespoons arrowroot
1 cup castor sugar
1 tablespoon gluten-free plain flour
1/2 cup vegan gluten-free milk
zest and juice of 2 lemons

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line the base and sides of a small baking tray with paper (I would use something measuring about 20cm square).

Prepare the base by beating together the Nuttelex, sugar and vanilla with a fork. Sift over the flour and mix it in well. Transfer the mixture to the baking tray, using the back of a spoon to spread it out across the base and ideally also an inch up the sides. Bake the base for about 10 minutes or until it just begins to dry out. Set the base aside to cool.

Whisk together all of the filling ingredients until well combined and pour them over the base. Bake the slice for a further 20-25 minutes. Don't worry if it's still liquidy! It will set up as it cools. Once the slice is cool and set, slice and serve.

Gluten free cheese & spinach rolls - gluten free picnic part 2!

2010-03-02T17:36:00+00:00

There was so much deliciousness at this picnic, I got nowhere near trying everything. My highlights were Craig's potato cakes of deep fried amazingness & caramel slice - I have no idea who made this but it was so good! I used to love caramel slice & haven't eaten it for a very long time, now I definitely want to try making it myself.

I changed my mind so many times when trying to work out what my savoury food was going to be for the picnic. I had originally planned to make a layered mexican dip with one of the layers being a cheesey queso, then changed my mind to cheese & pesto scrolls & then at the last minute decided on cheese & spinach sausage roll type things. Bec had previously mentioned that you can buy a gluten free, vegan frozen pastry & even though it is really expensive (3 sheets for $10) it is super easy so I found some at Coles in Coburg & used this.

For the filling I pretty much made it up as I was going but the approximate recipe is:

2 boxes frozen spinach (thawed & drained)
2 cloves garlic
1 packet silken firm tofu
3/4 tub tofutti cream cheese
1/2 - 3/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 cup grated mozzarella cheezly
2 sheets Pastry Pantry pastry

Preheat oven to 220 degrees

Defrost pastry sheets

In a food processor blend the cream cheese, tofu & nutritional yeast

Transfer to a mixing bowl & add spinach, garlic, cheezly - mix well & season well

Cut each pastry sheet in half, add filling & roll up

Place on oven tray & cook until browned - I think mine took about 20 minutes

What's your favourite vegan specialty product?

2010-03-02T16:28:00+00:00

Hi folks,

if you are vegan or vegan inclined can you let me know what you favourite vegan product is that you like to buy? Something that you have to buy besides staples like fruit, vegetables, rice etc. It could be cheeze, icecream, sausages, soy milk, whatever really....It's for an article I'm working on, I will reveal all shortly.

Radical Grocery cupcake stall

2010-03-02T15:36:00+00:00

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I had settled in to my new house. Lucky for me I now happen to live above the Radical Grocery, Melbourne's only all-vegan fair trade ethical grocery store. It's perfect, a little too perfect really, considering at any time of the day or night I can walk through my living room and buy a Tofutti Cutie or Funky Pie. I've been restraining myself, but I have to admit the situation couldn't be more perfect.

My housemate Anikee, who owns and operates this amazing piece of real estate held a bake stall out the front of the shop during the Sydney Road Street Festival last Sunday. She whipped up six different flavours of cupcakes that not only looked and tasted amazing, but contained fair trade and ethical ingredients. I managed to nab a rosewater and pistachio, and a chocolate peanut butter before they were all sold. Both were simply incredible, and I wouldn't be surprised if a few people come back to the shop asking for more!

Top to bottom: Chocolate peanut butter (with cookies and cream in the background); pistachio rosewater; coconut rough; choc-mint; jam donut

Eating Animals – Winner!!

2010-03-02T13:33:03+00:00

The randomly generated winner of the Eating Animals comp was comment #17… Lou from Romancing the Mundane!

Lou, if you could email me I’ll arrange to have the book sent out.

Thanks for entering everyone! Stay tuned for another giveaway in a little while…

Black Bean Pie

2010-03-02T11:12:00+00:00

A word of warning, this recipe was originally for a black bean soup recipe. This makes about enough filling for 2x 9inch pies, so I would cook one and freeze one OR make enough for one bean pie and keep the stock and make black bean soup with the rest! The black bean soup recipe was originally from the Real Food Daily Cookbook.

Ingredients
2 cups of black beans
2 bay leaves
6 cups of vegie stock
1 can of tomatoes
1 tbsp of tomato paste
6 cloves of garlic minced
1 onion diced
2 large carrots diced
1/2 cup of corn kernals
2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp liquid smoke
1 tsp of chipotle
1/4 of a cup of chopped corriander

Soak the black beans overnight. Rise thoroughly picking out any stones or weird ones. Put onto the stove with the stock and bay leaves, bring to a simmer and leave for an hour, skimming off any foam that comes to the top. Once they are cooked, drain. In a heavy bottom pan, fry up onions, garlic and carrot for about 10 minutes until the carrots start to soften. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer until the flavours are mixed about 10 minutes. Transfer half of the bean mixture into a food processor and pulse. Spread into a 9" pastry lined pie pan. Cook for about 40 minutes. I served with lime tofu sour cream and chipotle.

Pictured with handful salad

White chocolate raspberry cupcakes

2010-03-01T20:04:00+00:00

Look how pretty these are, but silly me has gone and misplaced the recipe. Damn damn damn...

Bringin’ Bonsoy back… yeah…

2010-03-01T15:40:00+00:00

Spiral Foods has released another announcement today about the Great Bonsoy Scandal of 09/10:

Bonsoy has now isolated the source of the iodine, which is naturally occurring in kombu, a seaweed which was an ingredient of Bonsoy. The producers of Bonsoy are currently reformulating the product, which involves the removal of kombu…

Thank you to those who have contacted Spiral Foods showing your support, we will be bringing back Bonsoy (reformulated) to our loyal customers very soon.

I do wonder how much consumer confidence in the product has taken a beating in the past few months. Will you go back to drinking Bonsoy, or are you happy with the alternatives you’ve found?

last day of chinese new year / out at enlightened cuisine

2010-03-01T12:33:00+00:00

The foods we eat at Chinese New Year are important: there is a symbolism there, we don't just eat them for tradition, we eat them because of superstition. That's not to deny that custom is involved, because it is, but its primary function is symbolic in nature.

We eat fish(鱼), for prosperity, and abundance.
We eat chicken(鸡), for happiness.
We eat noodles to bring us a long life.
We give oranges as a symbol that we wish our friends to be wealthy.
We eat peanuts for long life.

We share these dishes, passing them back and cross the table, dipping in with our chopsticks, to indicate that we wish these things for one another, that we want to share these things with our loved ones.

This is part of the reason why the hardest part about my veganism for my mother was not veganising foods, but coming to terms with the fact that we could no longer share in this way during Chinese New Year. And this is why mock meats exist, you know, for exactly this reason.

Yesterday was the last day of Chinese New Year, so Em and Jo joined us at Enlighted Cuisine for one last CNY noodle sharing. The table across from us had yee sang, and oh I considered it for half a second, but put it aside for next year - next year we'll go to EC for yee sang, and lo hei it all up.

We ordered the lemon chicken, and we ordered an assam fish (the fish was deliciousness, though could have done with more sauce). Of course (of course) we ordered noodles, Em and I would have it no other way. We ordered some gailan, which was beautifully gingery, and we loaded up with chillis, both fresh and otherwise, which were tangy and spicy (in the case of the sambal, very spicy).

I wanted yee mee, but we went for the mee goreng, which was gently flavoured with curry powder (my favourite way of serving mee goreng).

EC was full of people doing both 15th day of the month stuff, and last day of CNY stuff, and it was nice. Sad it was so cold!

PPN: Of birthdays, farewells, and noodles

2010-03-01T10:57:00+00:00

Today we welcome autumn in the Southern hemisphere. A time when change is foremost in my mind. The days are cooling and darkening. The past week seems full of more than its fair share of farewells. Sylvia is learning to wave goodbye. She smiles as her little chubby hand flops about without much control. She hasn't yet learned the sadness of farewells. But at least she knows the comfort of noodles served with lots of vegetables.

The most important farewell last week was a bittersweet one. We celebrated Sylvia's birthday and said goodbye to the her first twelve months of rapid development and moved into her second year. She is also now able to clap her hands and laughs with joy at what her hands can do. A birthday at the change of season is not a bad thing. It means celebrating at a time when we have had enough of the heat (and sunburn) of summer and welcome some cool weather. This summer, however, has not been overly hot. Yet I still feel glad we will be having more baking weather.

I will also be glad to see Sylvia move further away from the days of chewing anything in sight. Last week she drooled over my camera cord so much that I can no longer use it to download photos to the computer. I found out that it is not easy to replace such cords so I am now using a card reader. I guess I will get used to it, like all changes.

It was also a week to find out that Tart n Round cafe is closing today, that wonderful trendy grocery store on Lygon Street (where the Vina Bar was) called Two Prickly Pears has also closed, and to see that the VeganCowGirl blogger is riding into the sunset. Then my lovely Alcazar keyring that I bought in Segovia, Spain fell apart. All will be missed. Tart n Round goodies will be still sold elsewhere but I don't know where I will now find Herbie's beetroot powder (other than online). Even at work we launched a new organisation in line with a new round of funding that will mean the end of the research centre that intially employed me some years ago.

As for the eating plan, we didn't do too badly. Pizza Monday sort of worked. The yeast in my frozen pizza dough seemed to have done its own farewell as the dough did not rise. The pineapple was past its best. But we enjoyed the vegan cheese and sausage toppings. We had salad and rice and pasta but not necessarily on the days in the plan.

Noodles featured this week. I tried a new recipe for the flat pad thai rice noodles on the weekend. I love these noodles in Pad Thai but it seems too overwhelming some nights so I loved this simpler recipe. It has those dry almost rubbery noodles that are so comforting and lots of flavour. I didn't soak the noodles, which extended the preparation time needed.

I made this dish again on Sylvia's birthday. They worked much better the second time around. I had wanted a meal we could eat together at the table and that all the family would enjoy. Sylvia's first food was rice cereal and she loves noodles. I tried to put a lot of her favourite things in it - tofu, carrot, pumpkin and broccolini. We all enjoyed it, though E wanted some of Sylvia's tofu but there wasn't much left. The birthday girl got the tofu and we had chopped nuts.

I had been inspired to make thai noodles because I had bought some Thai burgers. I wont horrify you with the charred grilled burgers that I served with the with the ginger noodles on teh first night. But I will share the other noodle recipe that I made last week.

I had been idly browsing through a freebie box of recipe cards from The Age newspaper that I had found in a pile of papers. As E commented when he saw the recipe card, was I really going to make Thai Chicken Salad. Not on your nelly! But I liked the sound of the dressing and decided I could use the burgers instead of chicken. No relation to chicken at all, but substantial enough to take its place.

Then I chopped up lots of vegies. Above is a picture of how I like to cut up snowpeas for such Asian salads. Many more vegies than the recipe called for but just the sort of colourful concoction I love.

I am so often intimidated by Thai recipes but this one had ingredients I have about the house. Fish sauce was a prominent ingredient. Many moons ago Lucy had suggested umbeoshi or plum vinegar so I tried a combination of tamari and umeboshi plum vinegar. I went vegetarian before fish sauce became fashionable so I am not familiar with the taste but I loved this dressing. Of course I couldn't resist calling it Thai Tricken Salad.

We served it on rice vermicelli noodles but it would be just as good on rice. However last week the rice dish we had was a variant on Rice and Beans. It gave me a chance to use some of the huge tub of olives that E bought and the roasted pumpkin I made with the large pumpkin I bought.

I am sending the Fried Ginger Rice Noodles to Ruth from Once Upon a Feast for Presto Pasta Nights (number 153). This is a special week because it is three years ago that this inspiring blog event was started by Ruth. Three years is along time in the blogosphere for bloggers to be sending pasta dishes to Ruth and all her guest hosts. I am constantly amazed at the interesting variety of all types of pasta on display. I encourage you to check out the PPN website. Congratulations to Ruth and all her hosts on a great achievement!

Thai Tricken Salad
Adapted from The Age Epicure 50 Best Recipe Cards
Serves 2-4

2 thai burgers (or other veg burgers or cubes of tofu)
2 small carrots, cut into matchsticks
½ cucumber, cut into matchsticks
1-2 spring onions, thinly sliced
1 cob of corn, cooked and kernels sliced off
½ red capsicum, thinly sliced
½ green capsicum, thinly sliced
1 handful of snow peas, thinly sliced
chopped peanuts

Dressing:

3 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp tamari
1 tbsp umeboshi vinegar
1 tsp castor sugar
½ tsp chilli paste
1 small garlic clove, finely chopped
dash of toasted sesame oil

Making dressing by lightly whisking all ingredients together. If using tofu, marinate in dressing as much as overnight or as little as 30 minutes (while you chop vegetables). Then drain and grill (broil) or fry until golden brown. If using Thai burgers, cook under the grill until golden brown. Chop burgers into small cubes.

Place all vegetables in a medium salad bowl with tofu or burgers. Toss together with dressing. Serve sprinkled with chopped nuts.

Fried Ginger Rice Noodles
Adapted from Cuisine.com.au
serves 2 adults and a toddler

1 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp dark-roasted sesame oil
½ onion, sliced into half moons
2 carrots, cut into fine matchsticks
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tsp ginger, finely grated
4-5 button mushrooms, sliced
1 handful snowpeas, trimmed and thinly sliced vertically
1 bunch broccolini or broccoli chopped small
100-250g tofu (optional)
½ packet fresh flat rice noodles (250g?)
300g pumpkin, peeled, diced and roasted
2 tbsp tamari (or soy sauce)
3 tbsp mirin or sweet rice wine
3 tbsp ginger juice (grate fresh ginger and squeeze out the juice)
2 tbsp roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
1 tbsp spring onions, finely sliced (I didn’t have these)

Mix together the tamari, mirin and ginger juice mixed in a small bowl ahead of time. If you are using tofu, marinate it in the mixture as long as overnight or as short as just before you start cooking the dish.

Heat a frying pan or wok on a medium heat and add the oils. Fry the onion, carrot, garlic and ginger for about 5 minutes or until the vegetables are almost soft.

Meanwhile soak noodles in boiling water for about 5 minutes until soft or as directed on the packet.

Add the mushrooms, snowpeas and broccolini and tofu (if using). Stir for 1 minute. Then add drained noodles and ¼ cup of water. Cook for a few minutes until water has almost evaporated. Stir in pumpkin.

At this stage if you want your dinner less seasoned for a baby add a little of the tamari mixture to season to taste and then remove baby serving. I added just a little tofu for Sylvia at this stage as she did not get any nuts on her baby helping and I didn’t have much tofu.

Add remaining tamari mixture to frypan and stir for a few minutes until most of this has evaporated. Serve in bowls and sprinkle with chopped peanuts and spring onions.

On the Stereo:
The good, the bad and the queen – self titled

Monday Melbourne Roundup

2010-03-01T10:22:00+00:00

I cooked something new!! So wait for the recipe which will be up this week. I'm slowly getting back into my groove, having all new furniture has really rejuevenated me. Last week was INSANELY busy so I am forcing myself to stay in as much as possible this week/long weekend. I have a few art projects I've been working on at home so I'm going to finish them this weekend. Also as you've no doubt gleaned I've been super depressed over the past couple of months so this week is the festival of Carla!! I'm going to get a body wax, a massage, a pedicure and a facial. I'm going to be all shiny and new by the end of the week. Happy days.

Out

The Maltese Consulate

I applied for my EU Citizenship this week, a monumental event for me. Dreams of retiring in Spain have kept me off the ground all week. I could apply through heritage (2 lines of family born there) but getting the documentation took me 6 months. Apparently it could take them up to 18 months to process my application but I've made plans to stay in Melbourne for 3 years so, I gotst time. Hoorah!

Book Club at the Penny Black

This months book was Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas. I loved it. Its become one of my favourite books ever. Eerily similar to my own teenage years its not often I find things I identify with so easily. "Are you proud of being Greek", "I'm happy I'm Greek, but I'm not proud". Sigh. Christos. The Penny Black continues to be my favourite bar in Sydney Road. I had yummy wedges with harissa.

John Waters - The Art Centre

Pink Flamingos is my favourite movie of ALL TIME. Without a doubt the best experience of my entire life. I can die happy now.

Listen with headphones - NSFW (or sensitive ears)

Sydney Road Festival

Boring! I only hung around for a little while, why does it always bring out so many ferals?

The Road

Stunning. Breathlessness, gorgeousness. John Hillcoat is freaking amazing. The only thing that REALLY irritated me was the product placement in the film. Was that necessary AT ALL?!?!? Coke, Doles canned foods, Cheetos and Vitamin Water, really really disappointing and detracted from what was an absolutely amazing film. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis' soundtrack was beautiful. Thanks to Penny at Three Thousand for the double pass.

Eats/drinks

Shakaharis

No update because I ate exactly the same thing there as I did last time. Lentil parcels, asaparagus in a nest, avocado rolls and tofu crème caramel. It was totally and utterly delicious and everyone who works there is so so friendly. We had 3 beers and a coffee and the bill was $40 each. Bargain as far as I'm concerned.

Bright Young Things - Full Moon Dinner

2010-03-01T10:10:00+00:00

The thought of reviewing this was somewhat daunting. Bright Young Things are Culinary Event Makers and once a month they host a Full Moon Dinner. For $75 a head you get three courses, canapes, and a whole lot of wine.

My friend Marney and I went in Jan, very excited. Warned we were vegetarian and vegan, they promised us it wouldn't be a problem. Well, it didn't really work out that way on the night, and for $75 I felt sorely ripped off and tried to drink my way through the $75 instead. Anyway, I emailed the director the next day as I wasn't brave enough to complain on the night and she was more than understanding and offered to make amends inviting us to the Feb dinner, complimentary of course.

We went on Wednesday and, having been given an opportunity to impress, this is the evening I will review.

It all started out beautifully, with delicious lychee martinis and bubbles, and our very own vegan canapes. Having 4 canapes specially made for us impressed me - they other canapes around the room were different to ours. Having been left out of the canapes last time, I appreciated she took this on board. And they looked and tasted beautiful.

Seating was vastly improved this time, right in the midst of it near the singer (Gosling?), and service was impeccable. Little speeches were made by one of the Bright Young Things to let us know tonight we were celebrating garlic. I don't know, but is this normal? Celebrating a humble vegetable when usually it's meat? Either way, I liked it.

Our table had a beautiful handwritten menu of our vegan fare for the evening, which also made me smile - we received the meat menu last time as there was no menu for us. It sounded perfect.

To start we got a shared plate of pimentos fried with salt and sherry vinegar. These were great! And with one in ten being hot, hot, hot it made for a fun Russian Roulette start to the night. Things were going swimmingly. Our next course was shared tastes - heirloom tomato salad which was, you know, nice enough but I felt I could have made it. For a beautiful heirloom tomato salad which beats all other entrees check out Delizia Cucina in Seddon. The cauliflower, pea, broadbean salad was ok, but was really just what I described it as, some vegetables with no special treatment to make them shine. The chickpea and silverbeet dish was beautiful and rich, reminiscent of an India saag and won the shared plates selection hands down.

The main event was interesting. I LOVE that they got so creative and served us something I have never had or encountered before - a mushroom and vine leaves pie. Ok, so the menu description is significantly classier than that sounds, but that is essentially what it was, sans pastry. A selection of different mushrooms with crispy vine leaves in a rich sauce in a little pot. Really tasty, but sadly just a bit too strong to be able to eat a lot of. Apparently there was cavalo nero, pine nuts and pearl barley in there too, I couldn't tell and the lighting was certainly too ambient to be able to see much. I only got about a third of the way through.

This came with a side of quinoa, farro and burghal wheat salad. I eat a fair bit of quinoa and I really couldn't find any in this dish. I decided it was couscous. I might be wrong. It was tasty enough. The fennel and orange salad with tatsoi, hazelnuts and radicchio sounds more amazing than it tasted. I don't know why. Somehow the flavours fell flat.

Dessert was where things got strange. Marney got the standard dessert of Gorgonzola Cheesecake with figs and candied walnuts. She thought that sounded great, I thought it sounded like dirty socks and it turns out it tasted the same. A quick glance around the room proved case in point. No one came close to finishing their dessert. Who cares, mine was great! After my previous experience of a bowl of tomatoes and strawberries, this dessert was a beautiful blood orange and campari sorbet with berries. Marney ditched hers and helped me tuck in. As did the table of boys next to us.

I don't understand it but at the end I felt strangely underwhelmed. The service was warm and attentive, there was way more food than we could even attempt to eat, the menu read beautifully, they were enthusiastically creative and surprised me with the impressive mushroom vine leaf 'pie'. And most of all they did everything they could to make sure we were happy. But overall I just don't know that their flavours worked all that well. I like to go out and eat meals where I just can't work out how they get it so great. In this case, the average cook that I am, I actually think I could replicate some of these.

Don't get me wrong. It wasn't bad. And it was WAY better than the first time. But for $75 I guess I hope to be a little more wowed. I'm not ruling them out though, they have already improved since last time and they have only just started really paying attention to vegan meals so there is potential there.

Bright Young Things
29 Niagara Lane, Melbourne CBD

Sober February: I did it!

2010-02-28T20:30:44+00:00

I made it!! With the help of lots of mineral water, caffeine, ginger beer, and lemon, lime and bitters. (Though I found out on Friday that bitters is like 44% alcohol! I had three or four bitters a week, does that mean I have to start over? I mean, I thought it had traces of alcohol…)

These last two weeks have been up and down. Sometimes I’ve found it really hard going, and been dying for a drink. These times, surprisingly, have not really been when I’ve been out, but instead when I’ve been bored or stressed. So that’s interesting.

I’ve been sleeping for longer, and waking up feeling rested, which I’m loving. I haven’t experienced any of that ‘clear-headedness’ stuff, but I’ve been able to focus on my work for longer periods. (Or maybe I’ve just been busy.) My mood has been more even overall, but I’ve still felt stressed, anxious, sad, worried and the rest of it at times.Physical changes have been pretty negligible.

I’ve saved a lot of money! Hurrah! That’s a big motivator for me at the moment. I’ve just gotten myself out of debt and I’m now looking to start saving for some big things, so the not-drinking has been a good kickstart for those goals.

Overall, I’m glad I did Sober February. I’m proud that I actually made it the whole way through, and on a whole it wasn’t completely awful, though it wasn’t exactly fun either.

I want to carry my new good habits into March. I won’t stop drinking altogether but would still like to do much less of it, so hopefully now that I know I can stop, cutting down will be a breeze.

Also, it’s been interesting to take a break from something bad for me and see how I respond to that. I’m kinda toying with the idea of giving up something different for March… coffee or sugar springs to mind. The idea of giving up coffee gives me the heebie jeebies though! Perhaps that’s a clear sign I should do it, then?

February 20, 2010: Coco Loco II

2010-02-28T19:55:00+00:00

Michael and I spent Saturday afternoon at the Applecore Backyard Festival with some friends. The relaxed atmosphere and discovery of some great unfamiliar bands were obvious highlights, but we were also pretty chuffed that we avoided sunburn entirely thanks to some huge, cheap Big W hats. Even so, we were a little drained as evening fell and in need of some sustenance before heading home. We'd spent the day grazing on vege sausages-in-bread and BBQ shapes and had very different ideas about what we needed to eat next. While Michael and Mike originally suggested pizza, Toby was keen on Coco Loco, and since I was fighting from the Sweet Stuff corner I readily agreed with Toby.

Toby assured us that Coco Loco sells savoury crepes and this is true. However this restaurant's love of sweet luxuries is written and illustrated all over the menu. There are pages and pages of chocolate truffles, cocktails, hot and iced chocolate and coffee beverages (liquor-shot by request!), waffles and other desserts competing against a modest offering of 4 savoury crepes. (Even one of those contains chocolate!) Our incredibly cheerful waiter also rattled off a handful of additional specials, his enthusiasm not diminishing as he repeated them for our late-coming companions Mike and Kristy.

It wasn't in vain - I took him up on the drinks special, a mocktail involving hibiscus, ginger, vanilla, pineapple and coconut (~$13). It was just the refreshment I needed, with a nice gentle ginger burn in the back of the throat.

Michael chose the Kama Sutra crepe ($15), which was stuffed with Indian spiced roasted pumpkin and fetta cheese. It was richly flavoured with cumin and went down a treat.

To eat I chose yet another dish from the specials - a chocolate mousse garnished with strawberries. The first time we visited Coco Loco I was underwhelmed by the grainy texture of the cashew milk. Here I was completely knocked out by the smooth, rich fluffiness of the mousse. An unsuspecting eater would never have guessed that this was vegan, it's a refined dessert by any standards. (How I'd love to know their secret! My tofu chocolate mousse is tasty'n'all, but it's not this kind of bliss.)

While the menu is a little inconvenient to navigate, vegan and gluten free options are clearly marked. Our waiter of the evening deserves another positive mention - he was utterly good-natured in the face of our embarrassing disorganisation and social lingering. I believe everyone around the table was well satisfied by their meals - these aren't everyday-eating prices but then, these aren't everyday-eating dishes.

__________

Read about our previous visit to Cocoloco here.

Gluten free carrot cupcakes for a gluten free picnic

2010-02-28T17:54:00+00:00

Friday night was a gluten free potluck picnic (Steph has blogged here) which was originally cheese themed so I decided to make my food gluten free & cheesy. For my savoury food I changed my mind heaps of times when trying to decide what to make but right from the start I thought that for my sweet food I wanted to make gluten free carrot cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting.

The first batch of cupcakes I made were these from A Gluten Free Day. I made them earlier in the week before the picnic planning to freeze them since I like to be organised. When they were freshly baked they were beautifully light & fluffy but because they don't actually have grated carrot in them (which I didn't realise until I started making them) they were not what I wanted. So I left them for us to eat but they were incredibly stale by the next day.

So it was the night before the picnic & I started worrying about how I was going to have time to prepare anything, especially given that Thursday nights are a struggle for me because I go to prenatal pilates in the evening. But for some reason I managed to have an amazingly productive thursday the day before the picnic - worked a completely hectic 10 hour day, did 2 days worth of dishes, got dinner ready & made a new batch of cupcakes all before I went to pilates. I was hoping that these cupcakes would work because I really did not want to be making a second batch later that evening & luckily they did! These were really nice - full of chunky bits due to the walnuts & raisins & really tasty. Unfortunately they had started to go a bit stale by the next night but apparently that is just the way it seems to be with gluten free baking. I based these cakes on a recipe from recipezaar which is apparetly from Gluten Free Goddess but I did change quite a few things so my recipe is below.

Ingredients

Carrot Cupcakes

Orgran egg replacer equivalent to 3 eggs)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup apple sauce
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups orgran self raising gluten free flour
3/4 cup dessicated coconut
1 1/2 cups carrots, shredded (about 4)
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup walnuts

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees
Prepare cupcake liners or grease a muffin tray
In a mixing bowl, beat the egg replacer & oil and beat; add the brown sugar and beat until smooth.
Beat in the apple sauce, vanilla, cinnamon and spice.
Add in the flour and beat until combined. (The batter should be a bit thicker than wheat flour batter.).
Add in the coconut, carrots, raisins, and nuts; stir with a wooden spoon to combine.
Put the batter evenly in the cupcake liners or muffin tray and place the pan in the center of a pre-heated oven.
Bake until the cakes are firm, and a wooden pick inserted into the center emerges clean, about 15-20 minutes (or longer if necessary).
Cool on a wire rack and frost with cream cheese icing.
For cream cheese icing, beat tofutti cream cheese with icing sugar

More dinners from the T-House, or: A Selection of Goodies

2010-02-28T14:28:00+00:00

Yo yo yo yo, babypop

Continuing in the grand tradition of playing catch ups, I humbly present to you two more meals from the T-House which went down a treat.

Yellow Thai Curry

A bit of a cheater. Vegan With A Vengeance set out a bewdiful recipe for homemade curry paste. Yet in the back of the pantry was a ready-made jar, ninja vegan. The recipe called for a number of separate steps to prepare the rest of the curry anyway, so the jar was opened.

And it was good. We've made it again and the jar will give us one more batch too. We added rice noodles to bulk up the curry, and you see version-topped-with-coriander below but version-topped-with-basil was also excellent. Versatility! (I also recommend frying the tofu in soy sauce instead of oil. Or both, but be warned that you will be picking at the tofu after it's cooked like chippies).

Corn Chowder

I'm usually not a soup fan, preferring my dinner to be chewable. But this one, also from VWAV, was heeeeearty. It did involve removing half of the soup and blending it before returning it to the pot, but as we are absent a stick blender it was necessary to make this thick and smooth chowder. Buzz and I spent a very lamely amusing evening arguing over 'chOWder' and 'chow-DAIR'.

Hurry Up Alfredo

Vegan Yum Yum is the recipe book that keeps on giving. Having seen a number of bloggers, including Kristy, enjoy the creamy alfredo that Lolo at VYY created, we weren't surprised when it was bloody good. A tangy, creamy alfredo - go easy on the mustard - hit many spots. However, with the great big bowl of pasta that the fatty sauce thickly coated, and topped with Parmazano, this is a meal for after you've belted it out at the gym.

vegan + gluten-free picnic potluck

2010-02-28T10:47:00+00:00

So, I don't want to be the Spaminator or anything, so I've been holding off waiting for other people to post to Planet VeGMeL, but I am impatient and eager and cannot wait! And so I bring to you now:

THE STORY OF A GLUTEN-FREE VEGAN PICNIC POTLUCK
(please come back for updates as I link to other bloggers and posts)

On Friday afternoon I hurried out of work and jumped on the train, impatient to arrive home. I dashed off the train and to the house, straight up the stairs and into the kitchen, pausing only to kiss Danni hello.

I had important cooking to do!

But before all this: I woke up and marinated some tempeh in a mixture of tamari, garlic and sesame oil.

And before this: I cooked dinner Thursday night, and as the beans simmered, I prepared a nacho cheesy dip.

We were going to a potluck!

Kristy is new to the world of gluten-free living. Prior to this, she had been planning a cheese-themed picnic potluck for Friday afternoon, so she modified it to a gluten-free and maybe cheesy (vegan OF COURSE) picnic potluck. So keep in mind as you look at these delicious foods that everything that follows is vegan, gluten-free, and VERY TASTY.

So, you may be thinking, in what did all Steph's rushing about result? Well, I am glad you asked! It resulted in an amazing nacho cheese dip, about which I will blog (in detail) shortly. It tasted just like nacho cheese doritos, it was excellent! I do wish that we'd perhaps allowed it to soften a bit before we'd served it, as it was a bit on the solid side. And, since we were a bit time poor, Danni made a guacamole to accompany it.

We rounded out with a quickly thrown-together set of sushi - it's the perfect picnic food, though admittedly not very cheesy!

Cindy and Michael astounded us with these cheese and sausage stick things - they were pretty nifty! I really enjoyed both their taste and the novelty factor (cheese and sausage on a stick! Reminds me of primary school).

I know (because she told me) that Jo really wanted to stick with the cheese theme, so went with 'things you might find on a cheese platter.' I think she should be commended for commitment to accuracy, because the pate she made included a thin film of oil across the top, similar to one you might find on actual pate. (gross but) Awesome! :o)

Her submission also included an olive tapenade, no opinion on its awesomeness because I can't stand olives.

Vicki managed to track down the mysterious and elusive (and expensive) vegan and gluten-free pastry, rumoured to exist somewhere in the supermarkets of Melbourne. With this critical item in hand, she rocked in with spinach and 'cheese' sausage rolls! The pastry was a bit crumbly (to be expected, as Vicki reported it was falling apart as she tried to roll it), but the filling was delicious and it was an excellent and tasty addition to our picnic! She has blogged the recipe here.

In VERY delicious news, Bec and Craig turned up with some amazing potato products. Craig made some potato cakes, which I am going to attempt to replicate ASAP, and because Craig refuses to blog, I am also going to replicate the recipe here shortly, so that everyone else can try them. They were deep-fried battered fatty potato goodness, they were so tasty. I want to make these for Amanda immediately!

Then Bec produced this mashed potato. "So what?" you might say. "Anyone can do mashed potato." Well, anyone can do mash potato, but this mash potato included some Tofutti sour cream, and I have never done that before but I am totally going to do it from now onwards. It added something awesome to the potatoes (I love potatoes).

Kristy and Toby made some cheese-related items. Toby made a goat's cheese sort of thing, that a lot of people declared was more like a loaf, and Kristy made this cheesy dip - I didn't try either of these, they were on the wrong side of the blanket and I was too full! Hooray picnics!

I didn't manage to sample everything savoury, nor did I get close-ups of everything. Some of the stuff I missed: a beetroot salad; crumbed tofu (actually I tried this, it was like fish fingers); strawberries; more chocolate things; olives; more chocolate things; a rice salad; crackers; and apparently my feet. And apparently also whatever Johanna made, but I'm sure I ate it. Hmm.

I am really enjoying this obsession with ice cream. Every picnic, every gathering, it seems we have amazing ice cream with which to contend. This potluck, fantastically, was no different! Cindy pulled out a raspberry ripple coconut ice cream, constructed at Craig's request. What an amazing idea! This idea, plus the execution of the potato cakes, may possibly have made Craig the winner of the potluck, but that is open to a vote and he would have to contend with Kristy's blueberry cheesecake ice cream! BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE ICE CREAM. My word, we may be vegans but we do not sacrifice taste and deliciousness, I hope that is obvious.

There were other dessert things, some of which I tried, many of which I did not. I made the tactical error of trying the chocolate goods before any other sweets (aside from the ice cream, of course, which had to be eaten first before it melted, oh the horror). I really have to remember that chocolate, in bulk, does not agree with me, and there was a large number of chocolate sweets with which to contend, including chocolate balls and a number of slices (not all of which are pictured below, mostly because my camera skills - and the fading light - failed me).

Other sweets included carrot muffins with cream cheese frosting by Vicki, buttery cupcakes by Carla, and a pear torte by Bec (the latter of which was so rich). Also pumpkin cheesecake brownies.

There should be more picnics. Because they're awesome.

all photos here

Back!

2010-02-28T01:58:00+00:00

Gosh that was a long break, sorry about that! Now my laptop is fixed and I've settled into my new house with plenty of internet you'll be hearing a lot more from me. Check out the awesome stewed fruit from a few posts before, served up on a bed of rice porridge made with coconut milk, drizzled with maple syrup. Divine.

Bali Part I

2010-02-28T00:12:00+00:00

Seems like ages since I posted! Every now and then blogger doesn't recognise any of the new photos that I upload and I have to restart my computer. But to restart my computer means I have to close the million and one web page tabs that I have opened! So that's why I haven't posted. Good enough reason?

Anyway, finally a post about Bali. As I've gone to type this I have remembered that half of the photos are on the little netbook that I took with me (I missed my Mac though!) so I'll have to get my act together and transfer them onto my Mac and post again.

When we first arrived in Bali it was early in the day and we needed to wait until the afternoon to get into our rooms. What better way to waste a day than in the pool around the bar! The girls were itching for a coconut drink and spend their first rupiahs on one.

Next door the the hotel (we stayed at Bali Garden) was a restaurant that had vegan food specifically labelled on the menu.

Both of these dishes were very nice but it was expensive and not local food. The downfall of the restaurant (well all of them in fact) was that smoking was allowed at the tables. So my inconsiderate sister and B-I-L decided to chain smoke between dishes (and thoughtfully shared the smoke) and I found that really disgusting! Not only were my 3 children there, but also my nephew (my sister's boy), my second cousin (who's about 5) plus my mother and myself who are non smokers! So very rude I thought!

A few days after getting there we found the delicious and cheap local food and gave all the deep fried Western food a miss (sorry, most photos on the netbook!). Eventually we found this amazing fruit salad, which cost well less than $A1!

Jump forward to the last day and the girls decided to get their hair plaited before we left. We also got manicures and I got a pedicure. YM just got bored!

Don't think that YM missed out! He and I spent a few hours together surfing!

Mum and son time!

Sorry that it is such a jumbled post! I took 2 cameras with me - a little point-and-shoot as well as my good camera. I started off with my good camera but I found it way too much trouble to carry it around in the heat and changed to my little camera. That's why the photos are a bit higglty pigglty but I'll fill in the gaps on the next post.

Tahn

out and about; or, CNY noms with my family

2010-02-27T21:30:00+00:00

The first thing we did with my family, of course, was go in hunt of some noodles to share. We wanted to go to Idea Fine Foods for their excellent combination of CNY and noodles but, alas, they have closed! Warm and hungry and slightly grumpy, we turned around and went to the Thai restaurant across the road, Sawasdee.

Up the stairs we found the mezzanine busy, but were quickly seated even without a reservation. Our waiter claimed that there was no fish sauce or shrimp paste in the vegetarian curry, so we took him at his word and ordered a green tofu curry and a dish of noodles. The curry was spicy but quite flavoursome, and it was a good meal. And there was a guy playing a piano! Which made me laugh.

On Sunday we jumped on the train and ventured out to Box Hill for yum cha. We were excited! I love going to Vegie Hut for a nice combination of yum cha menu and lunch menu, but upon our arrival we were disappointed to find out that, due to CNY, there was no lunch menu available! Only limited yum cha, and a special Chinese New Year menu. We can eat a CNY menu anywhere, we were there for yum cha! No radish cakes, no taro cakes, which was a bit disappointing, and if you can't order noodles than what is the point? Still, the grilled dumplings were good, as was the sticky rice, and we finally tried the four seasons buns. A word to vegans - the green bun is definitely kaya, which always contains egg (it is next on my list of Malaysian treats to veganise).

We ended up at Penang Affair on Brunswick Street for dinner. The uncle there was delighted to meet my mother, with whom he immediately started chatting (in Hokkien) to work out if they knew any of the same people (they did not, although they did remember the same restaurants of the streets of Georgetown some forty years ago).

My parents started with some popiah (vegatarian but contains egg so not vegan), which mum declared 'okay, not quite soft enough.'

Of course (of course!) we ordered a CKT, because I love the CKTs available at Penang Affair. We also ordered a couple of serves of roti, a sayor campor, and a really great gulai campor. The gulai campor was seriously delicious, and went perfectly with the roti. I also ordered a spectacular cocktail, containing a whole lot of fresh chillies, that was a little too much for me to finish.

Monday morning saw us at Grigons and Orr, to which I have been eager to return since our first visit in December. I ordered the pan-fried tofu in soy sauce, with a side of baked beans. It was delicious, but I'll be honest - it was nowhere near as delicious as the cous cous porridge of my previous visit. Orange juice was pretty tasty, and Julie really liked her mushrooms and toast (and her hashbrowns, which are not suitable for vegans).

We adventured out to St Kilda, where we had lunch at Lentil As Anything. My mum had watched a documentary (or something?) on Lentil as Anything, and was saddened to hear he was running out of money so was particularly interested in going. There were a lot of things not on the menu on Monday, and we suspect it's because their vegetable delivery had yet to arrive (it turned up as we were leaving). So my parents shared the mixed curry plate, and Julie and I both ordered the okonomiyaki. It was massive! Delicious, but massive, I had to grab a container from the Spud Bar next door and take the remainder home!

For Monday dinner we hit up Shakahari, dressing up and ordering cocktails. Danni and I shared the potato gnocci which was served in a tamari sauce with snow peas - it was odd but tasty. My parents shared the soup of the day, it had almonds and broccolini which didn't appeal to me but was apparently very good.

For mains I tackled the 'memory of medina,' cous cous with an eggplant curry. My mother, Malaysian to the core, picked the Malaysian curry. Danni and my sister both opted for the pie, filled with mushrooms and accompanied by giant garden salads. All verdicts were good, and my father decided that this was the best vegetarian restaurant I had brought him to all weekend, which is a compliment I suppose.

Then on to dessert, for which I was glad I had kept room, for Danni and I shared the mango rice pudding and it was delicious, oh so lovely. My parents had the fruit crumble which was light and tasty, and my sister the mango sorbet. Mangos all around! As it should be.

On Tuesday I took them to the airport, and that was the end of our CNY adventures with my parents (not, of course, the end of CNY adventures as there is yet time!)! It was super awesome that they were able to come across to share noodles and traditions with us, and bring us CNY goodies and an adorable tiger, as is custom.

There could have been more noodles, though.

Sawasdee
Level 1 139 Little Bourke Street
Melbourne

Vegie Hut
984 Whitehorse Rd
Box Hill

Penang Affair
325 Brunswick St
Fitzroy

Grigons & Orr
Corner of Queensberry St and Chetwynd St
North Melbourne

Lentil As Anything
41 Blessington St
St Kilda

Shakahari
201-203 Faraday St
Carlton

orange and chocolate cupcakes

2010-02-27T13:55:00+00:00

My parents and my sister came across from Perth for Chinese New Year (it's like Christmas, but longer, you know). I took the day off from FoE in order to go to pick them up from the airport, so with my morning free Danni and I first went to Ceres for brunch with Jo and Em, where we all had the vegan big breakfast (oh yeah). Following this, Danni and Jo decided to bake some cupcakes.

Upon collecting them from the airport, we returned to find these delicious cupcakes waiting! They were chocolate and orange, and were very delicious! Tangy and chocolatey, and the icing was perfect! With thanks to Em for her assistance in grating the chocolate.

golden plains

2010-02-27T11:34:00+00:00

this isn't really food related (although there are usually some good vegan foods there) but we have 2 golden plains tickets we need to get rid of. they're $560 for both (that's $1.55 less than what we paid for the tickets including postage and booking fee). send me an email at ozcanadian(at)optusnet(dot)com(dot)au if you're interested or know someone who is.

Eating and not much else.

2010-02-26T15:23:00+00:00

I have barely had time to keep up with the blogosphere lately, let alone write anything. But I have done a few things that deserve a mention.

Yong Green Foods
My mate brought me takeaways from Yong Green on Monday night and damn it was good! If I was a decent blogger I would tell you exactly what he ordered but instead you will just have to get the gist of it cos I don't even know what it was. My favourite was the chickpea curry, but then I am quite partial to chickpeas so probably biased. The lentil dish was also divine and coming in third was a Japanese faux beef curry. Three of us at $11 a head, I'm happy. World's most basic review I know. PS They are also great for serving brown rice with their meals. White rice, I'm so over you.
Yong Green Foods,
Brunswick St, Fitzroy

Bowl of Soul
Do they even serve anything with a soul? Or anything in a bowl? Pedantics on the most oxymoronic name aside, you are guaranteed a great burger here. I was strong and managed to order something new, fearful I might regret it and wish it was the Stake Out Deluxe. Stake Out still wins but I had nothing to fear, the Creole Chickn Roll was delish and runs a close second. I'm starting to trust Carla's opinion that all their meals rule.

Bowl of Soul
Bridge St, Port Melbourne

Random things I love at the moment:

The Old Paper Shop Deli on Clarendon St - I have been addicted to their takeaway salads for months now. Their salads change daily, there are always at least 3 vegan options, and $8.90 for 3 is not so nasty on the wallet unlike so many other joints around my office ($12 for veg sushi???). They also have a heap of cakes which look great (but probably not vegan) and plenty of non-veg options so easy for everyone.

Coconut Oil - I don't cook with this much but it makes great body moisturiser. And if you have long, thick locks like mine, rubbing a bit of this into it a couple of hours before washing is GREAT.

Loving Earth - I'm currently hooked on these guys. They are a bit pricey but they are luxurious. A spoon of their Raw Cacao powder stirred into my muesli before adding milk makes for a healthy cocopops. Or add it to a banana and spinach smoothie, along with their Purple Corn Extract for extra antioxidants. I have also bought their Coconut Cashew Butter (swoon) and their Coconut Chocolate Butter which are great but I'm a bit lost for what to do with them. Not really into chocolatey spreads on bread.

Court Jester Cafe - chaotically charming

2010-02-26T11:09:00+00:00

A few weeks ago I had walked down to the Court Jester Cafe with Sylvia one quiet afternoon and we were the only people in the cafe. I loved the cake, the quirky decor, the light-filled space and there were pierogi on the menu. So I returned on the weekend with a few friends only to find that following a review in the Age newspaper, the place was absolutely abuzz with customers. However amid the chaos and crowds it retained the bohemian charm that I had loved on my first visit.

As soon as I saw Cindy and Michael write up their visit to the Court Jester, I wanted to go there. Not only did it look like an interesting place in the photos but its name is the same as that of one of my favourite films. At regular intervals during my childhood, rainy weekend daytime was cheered up by the Danny Kaye movie with the classic scene with the flagon with the dragon, the vessel with the pestle, the chalice from the palace and the brew the is true! On my first visit I asked if the name had anything to do with the movie and was told it came from a childhood nickname.

Nevertheless I loved the decor with bicycle wheels, quirky artwork, an odd assortment of chairs around a large wooden communal table carved with student graffit. The water was served in chunky old liquor bottles with interesting labels. And what's not to love about a place with a green chaise lounge.

I chose the Sour Cherry and Chocolate Torte. It was a dense moist cake with slivered almonds, flecks of chocolate and fresh cherries through it and melting chocolate and more fresh cherries on top. It was the best cake I have eaten out for ages. One of the benefits of being the only customer is that it is easy to chat to the guys who run the place. They told me that the recipe came from an old lady at a nursing home who had won a magazine competition with it. I would have given her the prize too. Sylvia sat beside me in her stroller and ate the cherries from the top.

While looking at the menu I was interested to see the owners, being of Polish and Ukranian backgrounds, served pierogi. One of my former housemates used to sing the praises of pierogi and even made a wonderful baked yeasted pierogi. So I immediately thought that I would love to go back and sample the pierogi with Will. I also invited another former housemate Nicki who came along with her partner Stuart and 7 month old baby Poppy. With E and Sylvia as well, we would be quite a crowd.

So I got nervous when I saw how much busier the Court Jester was on Cindy and Michael's ssecond visit. Then the review appeared in the Age. So I rang and booked a table. It was no problem and they said they had high chairs for the babies but without trays.

It should have all gone smoothly but the day started with many bad omens. It was too hot to walk so we took the train and then I took a wrong turn so we were late. Then Nicki and Stuart drove up beside up and said they had not been able to find the place. It is a little off the beaten track behind Sydney Road. We finally arrived to find the place busy, the owners frantic and no empty seats in view.

It didn't take long for a group to leave so we could have a seat but we were warned that there was about a half hour wait for food. That didn't bother us as we had plenty of catching up to do but the high chairs were literally that. Not baby chairs but chairs that were higher off the ground than most. So we had to hold Sylvia and Poppy. Wriggly babies don't make for relaxing conversation but we managed.

It was too busy to put Sylvia on the floor to play, despite some kiddie toys in a box, but it was a great place to take the babies sightseeing and show them odd decorations. It made me laugh when Sylvia didn't recognise the old rotary dial phone because these were the phones I grew up with. She loves an electronic phone with buttons and beeps and lights. Meanwhile conversation veered from Nicki's writing projects to prog rock to Will's gay cat.

Will, Nicki, Stuart and I ordered pierogi and salad. It came in tantalising dribs and drabs. We asked for a selection of pierogi but the (boiled not baked) dumplings seemed to be mostly potato and cheese with only one mushroom and cabbage filling spotted. Those Eastern Europeans love their carbs and a generous dollop of sour cream.

Unfortunately the salads came separately. They were a combination of potato salad, roasted vegetable salad and a smetana (sour cream and cottage cheese) salad. We all agreed they were very tasty. The rate at which they disappeared was testimony to that. On the plus side, the staggered serving of dishes meant less dishes to move out of reach of the babies. E had poliski toast (with bacon) and said it was very good. Sylvia also enjoyed some of the Dench sourdough toast.

By the time Will and I were eyeing off the desserts, Nicki and Stuart decided they had had enough of Poppy bouncing up and down on the table and that it was time they left. Unfortunately the place was so busy that there were a few breakages while we were there. One was the plate with the wonderful cherry and chocolate torte. How disappointing! But it did force me to try something else.

I would have liked to try the cherry pierogi but didn't want to wait for ages. The rhubarb honey drink was finished so I ordered a piece of Baba Gwen's plum cake and Will ordered a slice of Baba Gwen's coffee and strawberry cheesecake. Unfortunately they did not ask us if we wanted cream. My cake came out covered in cream and Will's came with no cream at all. If only they had given Will the cream and left mine off we would have been much happier. As it was, I had to ask for a piece without cream because it was just too much for me and for Sylvia. Once we had a piece of cake that was denuded of cream Sylvia and I enjoyed the cake.

Will enjoyed his cheesecake but neither of our cakes had the wow factor of the chocolate and cherry one. But overall it was a great way to spend the afternoon. After lunch, Will and I meandered along the back streets back to our place where he had parked and Sylvia had a lovely sleep in the pram. E took the quick option of the train because he had a haircut to go to.

When discussing it later, E and I agreed that some of the service was chaotic because the crowds seemed to have descended upon the place but that it was friendly and the place had charm. I was coveting much of the food that wafted past us and would love to go back and try the vegie burgers and/or the platters. (There is more to try in the cafe than on the web menu which doesn't look so veg friendly.) The Court Jester is only open for breakfast and lunch but if you have a group of 10 people or more they will open for dinner. I quite fancy the idea!

The Court Jester Cafe
15 Breese Street
Brunswick 3056
Tel: 03 9383 3904
Website: http://www.courtjestercafe.com.au/

Goodbye Tart’N'Round

2010-02-26T08:28:04+00:00

Tart’N'Round seriously delivered the cake goods…

Peanut butter chocolate cheesecake thingy.

PEPPERMINT SLICE!!!!

Tart’N'Round is closing as a cafe on 1 March, so this is your last chance to go there and eat up. However, they will still be doing wholesale of their yummy sweet goods, so all is not totally lost.

Tart’n'Round, 839 High St, Thornbury

Tart N Round Closing :-(

2010-02-25T21:52:00+00:00

I got the email in my inbox today informing me that:

Tart'n'round Cafe closing

Tart'n'round cafe/restaurant will be closed as of Monday the 1st of March. Come in this Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, for a meal and stock up on our yummy sweets , ice cream and vegan cheese.

Tart'n'round will continue to wholesale the yummy balls, biscuits, slices and ice cream.

If you have any inquiries please go to the website otherwise we will see you this week
I thank all of you for your support and patronage

Kind Regards
Andrew Schubert

And I seriously wanted to cry. The last time I was super sad about a cafe closing was when vegetarian orgasm closed but this is worse. Being able to go to one place and knowing that I can eat everything, that everything is both gluten free and vegan was just awesome and incredibly rare. Especially after being accidentally fed gluten at a vegetarian restaurant, and eating the horrible and possibly not vegan food at a gluten free cafe. It's where I felt safe as a new coeliac and I can't express how relieving and important that has been! It's also the first and currently the only place where I have found cereal that is filling, tasty and had the right amount of crunch. Please please please wholesale your cereal!

cereal-buckwheat kernals, nut clusters and lots of yummy dried fruit

Also, the savoury options just kept on improving. There served FILLING and pretty well priced gluten free food which tends to be expensive. I could go there and gets regular things like a gluten free burger and a pizza and feel less like a freak (I had a post coming up about my most recent visit but can't find the pictures). And they introduced me to flat gluten free bread. Plus I was going to have my birthday celebration there next month, I wonder if they will still make me a birthday cake even though that's really not wholesale business. I know a few people who thought the desserts were too over the top and unhealthy, but they were my type of dessert- rich, decadent and so delicious.

I think it makes me a little angry too because the owners are really nice, and I've noticed the smaller places like this and Las Vegan (who everyone begged to be opened in the evenings) are often empty in the evening yet large impersonal places like vegie bar that serve pretty average food are always super busy.

I'm going to squeeze in one or two last visits this weekend and stock up on cereal and other things, so please don't buy the last packet of cereal.

Thanks for listening to me rant!

2 years

2010-02-25T20:18:00+00:00

we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary on tuesday. we decided to go to enlightened cuisine cuz we'd never been (we've had a bit of their food at a couple of different vegan day festivities but we've never gone to the restaurant). zac made a booking for 6pm (kind of early but he's always starving after work and i guess he figured by the time we ate it would be later). he got the work car so we wouldn't have to take public transport. that ended up being a really dumb idea. we knew the live music rally was happening in the city (zac really wanted to go but i didn't want to ride in to the city and then ride somewhere for dinner that nite). we also knew from rrr that there were a LOT of people at the rally. we left home at 5:50. we got to enlightened cuisine at 7pm. it's 8km from our house. we managed to listen to an entire cd before getting even half way thru the cbd. fortunately they weren't super busy (we figured we probably didn't need the reservation but just did it to be safe).
we decided to go with one of the banquets instead of trying to choose from their large menu. the banquet we ordered was "seafood" themed with shark fin soup, fish and 2 kinds of prawns as well as a satay chicken dish and stir fried vegies. it was a good choice (except we forgot to ask for no egg in the rice so we each had a small amount and the rest we brought home for wombat). it was a huge amount of food but we managed to finish everything except a few vegies and the rice). even zac was struggling to finish the shanghai pan cake dessert-- it's a rare day to see him not able to finish something. overall it was kind of a fatty, deep fried sort of meal but so tasty. i'm glad i finally got to try satay chicken (soooo good!)-- every time we go out with someone who orders satay chicken i always think it sounds so good if i could veganize it. i will be having it again.

Eat Drink Blog

2010-02-25T12:12:00+00:00

Eat Drink Blog, Australia's first food bloggers' conference, is being held here in Melbourne on Sunday March 21. It's an all day (and all night!) affair with panel sessions on:

how and why we blog
practicalities of photography
copyright, ethics and legalities
SEO and how to be social
making money through blogging

There'll also be plenty of time to socialise and eat with fellow food bloggers.

Participation is free but places are very limited. If you'd like to attend, fill in this form to register and cross your fingers for an invite!

Keep up to date with the conference by checking out the Eat Drink Blog blog.

Review: Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer

2010-02-25T10:35:14+00:00

Eating Animals is a powerful book that explores the kinds of foods we eat and why. Although the focus of the book is on meat, it is not, in the author’s own words, ‘a straight-forward case for vegetarianism’. Rather, it is a call for everyone to consider the environmental, ethical and social implications of modern farming methods.

Safran Foer’s investigations into where meat comes from includes persuasive arguments for and against eating animals, including the views of a wide range of stakeholders in the industry, including farmers, slaughterers, consumers and animal rights activists. Although Safran Foer draws his own conclusions about the morality of meat consumption, ultimately it is a call for readers to become more conscious consumers.

Eating Animals transcends straight reportage and evolves as a story about where food fits in to our families and cultures. Although harrowing in places, Eating Animals is a surprisingly beautiful read. Safran Foer’s considerable skill as a novellist results in a book that is utterly compelling; every sentence is finely honed and devastating.

A version of this review first appeared in The Big Issue #348, Feb 09.

The above tiny review is no where near long enough to say everything I would like to say about Eating Animals. Probably no length is, except perhaps the length of the book, which I could then quote verbatim.

No book has affected me more in the past few years (which is saying something given that two and a half years ago Peter Singer’s The Ethics of What We Eat was the turning point in my decision to go veg). Anyone who’s read Safran Foer’s novels will know what an amazing writer he is, and when he turns that talent towards the consumption of animals the result is absolutely devastating.

It sounds dramatic, but I had physical reactions to this book; it made me anxious and sick, like I was on the verge of a panic attack. I could only read it in 15-minute bursts. But at the same time I never wanted to stop reading, because the story Safran Foer weaves is so compelling and important.

One of the great things about the book is that it’s not evangelical. Safran Foer acknowledges that being a vegetarian can be hard, both socially and personally. He doesn’t ram his vegetarianism down your throat, but also doesn’t shy away from talking about how it’s both morally and environmentally important. The crises that he finds himself in drive the book forward: how will his vegetarian family cope without eating their grandmother’s famous chicken dinner, what should he do when the pig farmer he is interviewing offers him a piece of bacon, how supportive should he be of farmers who are trying to raise their livestock well?

Ultimately, it is not a book for vegetarianism but against factory farming, and for that reason I hope that omnivores don’t shy away from reading it. As Safran Foer says – no, pleads:

We can’t plead ignorance, only indifference. Those alive today are the generations that came to know better. We have the burden and the opportunity of living in the moment when the critique of factory farming broke into popular consciousness. We are the ones of whom it will be fairly asked, What did you do when you learned the truth about eating animals?

My only frustration with the book is its American focus. That’s not surprising given its American author, but I feel constantly frustrated that similar information with an Australian focus isn’t available (at least, isn’t as accessible as a book like this); I think it’s all to easy for people in this country to assume that those things don’t happen here.

There are two long and excellent reviews on Eating Animals that are worth reading: Peter Singer in The Monthly, and Caroline Hamilton in New Matilda. And you can read an adapted excerpt of the book at the New York Times. The book also has its own website.

EXCITINGLY, I HAVE A COPY OF EATING ANIMALS TO GIVE AWAY!

For your chance to win, simply leave a comment in the box below. I’ll choose the winner via a random number generator on 2 March.

cny noms at white lotus

2010-02-25T08:52:00+00:00

One of the critical elements of Chinese New Year is sharing food with friends, so we wandered over to White Lotus last week to try and share some food. Some of the things we shared:

(noodles not pictured, the photo was really bad and also the noodles were not that tasty, wth)

Claypot curry - claypot can be easy to mess up, and I've never had a claypot curry before, but this was delicious.

tamarind fishie (鱼) - at J's insistence, and it was really good, just tamarind-y enough.

roast duckie (鸭) - very important!

There were other things, too. The lemon chicken was pretty good.

Danni and I only shared the below with each other, and it was totally delicious:

oh yeah beancurd skin drumsticks, you're the best.

Overall: it was okay. Would probably go back again.

White Lotus
185 Victoria St
West Melbourne

Baking: the good the bad and the healthy

2010-02-24T19:09:00+00:00

Yet again time is short but I have an abundance of good food to share. I have been baking a lot lately because I need it on for so many reasons - to feed Sylvia healthy baked goods, to use up fruit that is on the edge, to comfort myself when work is stressful, and because I love it. So today I will give you two healthy baby muffin recipes full of fruit and an indulgent chocolate cake because we can't always be as healthy as we would like.

I shall start with the gluten free vegan apricot muffins that I made last week. When Sylvia started on solids, my sister in law Erica lent me a baby food cookbook that my sister Susie had lent her. One of the first recipes that caught my eye was a simple recipe for Gluten Free Apricot Muffins. It had a cup of rice flour and a cup of soy flour. These are flours that I can easily rustle up in my pantry. Plus, I had a tin of stewed apricots in juice that had been in my cupboard for quite some time.

I decided that I would substitute bananas for eggs so they would be vegan as well as gluten free. When I tasted the batter before cooking them I was a bit concerned that it tasted rubbish. However when they came out of the oven I was pleased with the results. Not very sweet but soft and full of flavour. They tasted particularly good with cream cheese and plum jam.

On a roll with vegan muffins, I found some very manky bananas and irresistable blood plums at CERES market. Blood plums have a special place in my heart. They are the only plums I remember eating in my childhood but they never taste as good now and they did then. On the same day I bought them, I decided to bake them in muffins in the short period of spare time while waiting to catch up with a friend. I don't think the bananas would have lasted much longer. They were even going to mush in my bag.

I adjusted a recipe from Tofu for Two and found the hard way that my muffins were taking a lot longer than Anni's to bake. I had a quick look at the muffins when I was ready to leave. Close enough for jazz, I thought, but when I tipped them out onto a wire rack to cool they collapsed. I put them back in the muffin tins, turned off the oven and ran out the door. When I returned they still looked sunked. E said they looked like they had been punched. But they tasted good, if not very sweet. However, I thought the recipe needed some tweaking because it was so moist.

After all my virtuous cooking, I needed to indulge in some sugar, eggs and butter. Oh yes, and some chocolate would be very nice! I blame returning to work in an organisation that is in refunding chaos. I had made Nigella's Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake from How to be a Domestic Goddess some year's back for the ex of one of my sisters. It lingered in my memory as a pleasant cake. So when my mum gave me some of her runny marmalade months ago I planned to make the cake.

As often happens, it took me a long time till I finally made it. Rather than making it for a social gathering as I planned, I made it because I needed chocolate and we were out of any dairy. Every recipe needed milk or buttermilk or yogurt. This was dairy-free. Unfortunately I didn't have quite enough marmalade. But in the spirit of emptying my store cupboard I topped it up with a little honey. My chocolate was also not the finest quality. So when the cake came out of the oven and tasted merely ordinary, I blamed my ingredients.

The next day, I found that it was my impatience that had been the culprit. After resting, the cake was as lovely as I remembered it. Dense and moist with a slight citrussy bitterness and the odd chewy piece of rind from the marmalade. It wasn't the prettiest of cakes when sliced but kept very well in my lunchbox and was a happy spot in my day when everything else was seeming a bit hopeless.

Sated with my chocolate cake, I decided to return to some healthier baking for Sylvia this week. I had bought raspberries on special and decided to try them in the plum muffin recipe. I added more flour and reduced the Sylvia on floor with muffin papers, rice crackers. They were fantastic.
The chocolate cake was not really baby food but I made the muffins specially for Sylvia. My mum says she shouldn't have too much sweet food, which is why I have really reduced the sugar in these recipes. However I quite enjoy having my muffins fruit sweetened rather than by refined sugar.

Sylvia has loved these muffins. She stuffs them into her mouth with delight. So you would think she would make it easy for me to bake for her. Oh no! I have her clinging to my legs so it is hard to get to the pantry and when I do open the pantry she is straight into it and pulling out anything she can. When making the plum muffins, I had to hold her while I spooned the batter into the muffins papers. She was even more grizzly when I made the raspberry muffins and the only way I could get her out of my hair to bake was to put her on the floor with the muffin tray, papers and some of her rice cakes. Fortunately they don't take long to whip up a batch.

Finally I noticed that Srivalli is holding an event called Kid's Delight and the theme this month is Wholesome Snacks. I really like the banana and raspberry muffin combination so I am sending this to Srivalli as I am sure she will enjoy it too. But I am going to be trying other fruits with banana in this recipe and I would be interested to hear from anyone else who does.

Chocolate Marmalade Cake
Adapted from Nigella’s How to be a Domestic Goddess

125g unsalted butter
125g dark choc chips
250g marmalade
50g honey (or use marmalade)
100g castor sugar
pinch of salt
2 eggs, beaten
150g self raising flour

Preheat oven to 180 C. Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin.

Melt butter in large saucepan. When butter is just about melted add choc chips and stir over low heat until just melted. Add marmalade, honey, sugar, salt and eggs. Stir until amalgamated. Then gradually stir in flour until mixed in.

Pour into prepared cake tin. Bake for about 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out cleanly.

GF apricot muffins
From Australian Baby and Toddler Meals by Robin Barker
Makes 12 muffins

1 cup soy flour
1 cup rice flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
425g tin of apricots in juice
½ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup buttermilk (I used milk with a squeeze of lemon juice)
2 eggs (or 1 banana)

Preheat oven to 160 C and grease or place paper liners in muffins tin.

Drain apricots, reserving 1 cup of juice. Roughly chop apricots (I used kitchen scissors) and gently mix with flours, baking powder, and cinnamon. In a small bowl use a fork to lightly whisk together apricot juice, oil, buttermilk and egg. Pour into the apricot and flour mixture and gently mix until just combined. Spoon into muffins cups and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out cleanly. Cool on a wire rack.

Plum (or raspberry) and banana muffins
Adapted from Tofu for Two
Makes 12 muffins

¾ cup milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
⅓ cup soft margarine
1 tablespoon apple concentrate
1 banana, mashed
2 tablespoons crushed flaxseed (linseeds)
¾ cup self raising white flour
½ cup soy flour
¼ cup wheatgerm
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda

For Plum muffins:

1 cup cubed plums
1 plum, thinly sliced

For Raspberry muffins

1 cup (125g punnet) raspberries, fresh or frozen
½ tsp orange zest

Preheat oven to 180 C and line muffin tins with paper muffin cups. Mix margarine, banana and flax seeds together in a large mixing bowl, then mix in milk, vinegar, and apple concentrate (and orange zest if using). Leave to stand about 5 minutes for flax seeds to absorb moisture. Add dry ingredients and stir til just mixed. Gently fold in cubed plums or raspberries. Spoon into prepared muffin cups and smooth a little with the back of a spoon. If making plum muffins decorate with plum slices. Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out cleanly. Keeps about 3 days.

On the Stereo:
Songs in the Attic: Billy Joel

Monday Melbourne Roundup (Wednesday and Brisbane addition)

2010-02-24T14:47:00+00:00

Crazy busy, I'm still 'off my food' so I'm really sorry about the no food posts lately, the handful of things I've actually forced myself to cook recently have been all old favourites that I've already posted. Thankfully I got a copy of Veganomicon in the post today so that and my membership to Moreland organic food co-op is going to get me off my arse and back in the kitchen!

Out

The Fantastic Mr Fox

I have a love/hate relationship with Wes Anderson, the hate list: Steve Zisou/Royal Tennenbaums
The love list: Darjeeling/Rushmore. I thought this was going to be too 'twee' for me, but I was happy to find out it wasn’t. It was super cute but also kept a cracking speed, the animation was cute, the story was very modern, overall I really loved it!!

Lady Grey by Will Eno - MTC

This was a freebie through Fringe Festival (not part of my usual MTC subscription) and it was jaw droppingly brilliant. A one woman show about negative space essentially. What we say when we don’t say something, what we imply when we do, why don’t we say what we mean? Or is all meaning abstruse to us through the filter of the ego? Talking from a very subconscious space, the play left a smear on my mind I am still thinking about and Will Eno has become someone of utter fascination to me. This play is not for everyone, its not 'enjoyable' in the more mainstream sense of the word, its highly uncomfortable with long silences and questions thrown out to the audience (that never expects a response, or maybe expects the response of no response), the lead actress is incredible and utterly spell binding. Blisteringly intelligent play that doesn’t say much about its subject, which says it all.

GOMA - Brisbane

I went to Brisbane for the weekend to visit some mates and I can say hands down that GOMA is the best museum of modern art I've been to in the world. Galleries and museums (which lets face it the large ones available to the public are funded by public money) should be welcoming, accessible spaces for anyone to enjoy. I think we can safely say that there are few galleries that a bogan or an old person or a small boy can feel 100% comfortable walking around. GOMA is completely successful in this regard. The building itself is stunning, a wonderful achievement in architecture and gallery space design. Tonnes of natural light without being too wanky (think Fed Square - I love it, but its REALLY pretentious). When we were checking in our bags, two 9 year old boys were checking in their bags too. It totally dumbfounded me that two nine year olds would even think of spending their Saturday at a Museum of Modern Art, comfortably. That they wont be looked at weird or overly observed by security staff. This is the ultimate success of GOMA for me but it is so much more.

Each art piece has a 'for kids' plaque underneath explaining in plain english what the art work is about. Not dumbed down, just plain english explanation. The main exhibition, the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art was completely freaking mind blowing. Speechlessness. The whole thing is free (fuck you MCA) and all the staff are wonderfully friendly and not overly tetchy. I implore you to not only go when you are in Brisbane next but to go to this exhibition as a point of interest if you love art, especially modern art.

Brisbane

Brisbane was a revelation. The public space is amazing. A free man made beach down on south bank with a lot of kiddies pools, a rain forest walk, good bike paths, lots of nature. This is how Melbourne should be (Melbourne is getting better). Brisbane has changed a lot in the ten years since I had been there. The food was incredibly average though so you're not going to see some food posts from me for a while.

Let's catch up! or, I mass upload

2010-02-24T09:29:00+00:00

Hi Kiddles,

Transmission has resumed!

Given the massive gap in which the T-House was offline, I've decided just to wham-bam-thankyou-blog and upload a lot of pics with little descriptions.

Buzz and I have been continuing our quest to end same-same cookering with 3 or 4 new recipes a week, which has been working well and has cemented my love of the Vegan Yum Yum recipe book.

Nuttelex Tofu (what else am I going to call Butter Chicken eh?)

It was ok - but really fatty by the time we'd fried the tofu and added the Nuttelex. A bit guilt-making. I'm loving this brand of spice pastes though - they do the Tom Yum that I was raving about and label the vegetarian packets, so there's just a little packet reading to check for vegan credentials.

Semolina porridge at The Mess Hall

Totally incredible and I've started making it at home.

Chilli Linguine

One of the coolest Xmas presents we got was from my uncle Biffs and cousin Zacman, who gave us this packet of chilli linguine. It. Rocked. Hard .

We added chillis from the chilli plant that our friends Miss Jess and Mr Lach gave us at our housewarming. I totally recommend this brand of pasta and will be giving gifts like this too!

Linktown Feb 24 2010 edition

2010-02-24T08:43:19+00:00

February 20, 2010: Cafe Vue@401

2010-02-23T21:52:00+00:00

With a friend visiting from Brisbane and our only vacant weekend slot on Saturday morning, Cindy and I plotted a breakfast outing. There's been a bit of buzz around Shannon Bennett's new venture, 401. This mines the same territory as the Cafe Vue in the city - affordable breakfast and lunch food from the man behind Melbourne's finest dining.

It's a slightly wacky fit-out, with a weird mix of casual and trendy. We nabbed a spot outside in the sunshine and perused the breakfast offerings. For all its pedigree the prices here are very reasonable, with vegie options starting at $4 and working up to $14. Cindy's attention was quickly taken by the corn fritters with avocado and tomato ($12).

These were, frankly, weird. They're an ultra-crisp fritter, fried to within an inch of their lives. Cindy spent most of her meal picking bits of corn out of her teeth and expressing disappointment. It's interesting to see how different these look to the slightly undercooked ones served up to Ponikuta, perhaps they're still working this dish out. Similarly strange was the avocado, which had been turned into an odd curl of smooth avocado paste - it was flavoursome, but the texture didn't really work for me. Cindy's tomatoes were yet another oddity. With the seeds and liquid scooped out, they'd clearly been sitting around for a while and were drying out.

I ordered the 62 degree eggs ($9.50 + $3 for the avo), which are cooked for a long time at (you guessed it) 62 degrees. This results in super soft eggs, with everything runny and delicious. Smush them across the crispy toast and you end up with a soggy pile of goodness. As discussed, the avocado wasn't really what I was looking for, so I ended up a little disappointed in my meal - I probably should have gone with a grilled mushroom or something instead.

The fresh orange juice came out in cute little bottles and hit the spot nicely, while my coffee was adequate without being exceptional. A highlight worth mentioning: the little tray of cutlery, salt and pepper comes out with a bottle of house-made tomato sauce in it - this was probably the best tasting thing that we ate and should be smothered over everything they serve. It's divine.

The service was pretty mixed - friendly, but a bit haphazard. We ended up with a spare juice, my coffee took ages to come (and was then followed straight away by an unordered 2nd one), and everything just felt a little disorganised. Possibly it was my high expectations (this is part of the famous Vue empire after all), but I found the whole experience very disappointing. Possibly it's just that fancy cheffing and breakfast aren't my ideal combo - the oddness of the fritters and avocado may be cutting edge cookery, but give me the more straightforward delights of Mitte, Min Lokal or Court Jester any day.

I seem to be in a minority though, there are positive reviews of Cafe Vue at Foodlicious and Fenciana, Sarah Cooks, Hot Chocolates and Lattes, Second Helping, Bright Copper Kettle, Food Rehab, Breakfast Out and Eat Almost Anything. A few others have noted some teething problems at 401: Ponikuta and 1001 Dinners, 1001 Nights.

Address: 401 St Kilda Road, Melbourne
Ph: 9691 3899
Price: $4 - $14
Licensed
Website: http://www.vuedemonde.com.au/cafe-vue.aspx

tofu cashew ricotta triangles

2010-02-23T21:22:00+00:00

I managed to make it along to the El Joyero Market a few weeks ago, where Pip had a stall. I bought a few things, including some of her delicious roast pumpkin, cashew ricotta, and silverbeet puff pastry triangles. Inspired by deliciousness, a few weeks later we decided to give these a go.

It was mostly guesswork, we found a few recipes for cashew ricotta (in the end, Danni used the recipe in Veganomicon, with varying proportions), then Danni spooned them into some puff pastry squares, folded and baked! So I came home from class, and there were some delicious puff triangles for consumption.

She reports that it was pretty easy, and I report that it was pretty delicious!

Go Max Bars, Red Skins and one sweet blogger

2010-02-23T20:02:00+00:00

In my last gluteny days, the very thoughtful Mandee (who I have never actually met) sent me some Go Max bars via express post so I could try them. They are unfortunately not gluten free due to one small ingredient- malt powder. I got to try one of each of them before I started eating gluten free, and here are my thoughts:

These pictures below are taken from the go max foods website because 2 of my bars didn't make then home in time for pictures :-)

Each chocolate bar is coated in rice milk chocolate, so even those crazy dark chocolate haters can enjoy them.

The Mahalo bar reminds me a lot of a bounty bar except it also has peanuts nestled amongst the coconut and top chocolate layer as you can see in the pic. (Toby pointed out Mahalo means thank you in Hawaiian)

The jokerz, was my favourite, it has roasted peanuts, caramel and nougart and reminded me a of a snickers bar.

The twilight, is super caramely, and also contains nougat.

The Buccaneer, reminded me of a milky bar, with it's simple but delicious nougat.

Thanks Mandee, it was incredibly sweet of you! You can read her post on them here. Now Go Max, please please please try to make them gluten free, or even just one gluten free version. They are available at the Cruelty free shop.

In other lolly news, Lidia alerted me to the fact the individual sized red skins and toffee apples lollies that you might find at a lolly shop or servo are in fact vegan. I found them at the lolly shop at Northland. But for some reason the smaller version that comes in a packet at the supermarket are not vegan. Now I just need to go back and check if they are gluten free. If you are interested in vegan food updates like this or know of other interesting vegan food updates, I created a facebook group called Aussie Vegan Food Updates.