French toast

I was stuck at home on Saturday morning waiting for some furniture to be delivered so decided to make myself a tasty breakfast of very simple french toast. 

I just whisked together some soy milk with a couple of teaspoons of egg replacer, a bit of vanilla extract, nutmeg & cinnamon, dipped some thickly sliced bread in it coating both sides well.  Then cooked it over medium heat in a non stick frypan with a little bit of melted nuttelex - I probably should have cooked it a bit longer but I tend to get impatient where breakfast is concerned!  I drizzled it with maple syrup & it was delicious!

Enlightened Cuisine

Anyone that knows me in real life knows that I have just done an epic 16 day, 10-15 hours per day stint at work due to an event my work was organising.  Because we were onsite at the Exhibition Centre last week my boss put us up in a hotel in Southbank, which I suspect is just so that we have no excuse not to work really long hours.  Anyway, after I finished up work one night I wandered down to Enlightened Cuisine to get some take away to eat in bed in my hotel room - if only I lived walking distance to there all the time!!

I ordered sesame prawn ($4.50 I think) which was so, so much like normal trashy Chinese restaurant prawn toast & quite delicious.

I also had the Beef Kway Teow ($11 I think) which I loved!  It was fillied with sliced mock beef & bean sprouts & was oily & smoky & tasted like beef kway teow from my omni days.  I am surprised I didn't eat this every night, it was delicious & cheap.

Greg also met me for dinner one night & we went there & ate 5 spice tofu & roast duck which were also really good - especially the duck, yum!


Enlightened Cuisine
113 Queensbridge St
Southbank

Baked tomato risotto

I am a big fan of baked risotto - they are super easy & only use one pot.  One night recently with very little fresh food in the house after a ridiculously, crazy busy week I managed to throw together a quick, easy & tasty baked tomato risotto.  I would have liked to add other vegies, like capsicum & zucchini but I didn't have any and I think fresh herbs would have been really good, but it was raining & I didn't want to go out & pick some!

Ingredients (makes 4 large servings)

• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 2 cups arborio rice
• 3/4 cup tomato passata
• 4 cups hot massel chicken stock 
• Half an eggplant 
• Semi dried tomatoes chopped
• Olives chopped roughly
• Artichoke hearts
• Rocket

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Heat the oil in an ovenproof dish (that has a lid) on the stovetop over medium-low heat.
3. Add the onion, eggplant and garlic and cook, stirring until soft. Add the olives & semi dried tomatoes.
4. Add the rice and stir.
5. Add the passata, bring to the boil then add the hot stock.
6. Cover and cook in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender. Stir once during cooking. 
7. Top with artichokes & rocket. 

Bowl of Soul

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

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

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