Vicki Vegan

Aunty Menas (again) - Wellington - New Zealand

2012-01-17T20:38:00.000+11:00

We found ourselves in Wellington during the day on New Years Eve when it was freezing cold & bucketing down rain. After we had enjoyed our first visit to Aunty Menas, we decided to go back for a bowl of laksa to warm ourselves up which ended up being the perfect idea.

We were pretty hungry by the time we got there so ordered vegetarian nuggets to start with.

Vegetarian Nuggets $7.50

These were trashtastic mock chicken nuggets that tasted very similar to their non vegan counterparts (from what I remember of them.)

Dumpling laksa $11.50

I ordered the dumpling laksa. Oh my goodness this was so good. It was absolutely the perfect thing to sit down to while it poured rain outside. It was creamy & mildly spicy & filled with dumplings, tofu & vegies.

Chicken laksa $12.50

Greg ordered the mock chicken laksa which was the same as mine but with mock chicken instead of dumplings. He very much enjoyed his laksa as well.

We chatted to one of the owners before we left who was very friendly & coincidentally a former Melbournite. I really liked Aunty Menas & will definitely be heading there next time I find myself in Wellington.

Aunty Menas - Wellington, New Zealand

2012-01-11T21:35:00.000+11:00

Greg's family are all in New Zealand & somehow I have never been over there so we decided to go over for 2 weeks for an NZ Christmas. Firstly, let me just say that from the little I saw of New Zealand it is absolutely beautiful. The food I ate was great, the wine I had was fantastic & the vintage clothes shopping is incredible!
We were mostly based in Wellington as we were staying with my mother in law who lives in a suburb of Wellington & although we didn't eat out heaps as we cooked for ourselves a lot I did have a few places that I wanted to eat at in NZ.
After reading this post by Carla I was pretty keen to check out Aunty Menas, so our first day checking out Wellington we headed to Aunty Menas for lunch. Aunty Menas is based on Cuba Street which is a very vegan friendly part of town & I absolutely loved that part of Wellington.
It is a very unassuming restaurant but the sign out the front proclaiming it as a Vegetarian & Vegan Restaurant was a pretty happy sight to see.

We were greeted by a brusque, efficient man who advised us that must of the items on the menu are vegan. We ordered, dumplings for Holly, Chow Mee for me & Dumpling Soup for Greg.

Dumplings $8.50

Holly's dumplings were really good. Steamed & then lightly fried on the bottom & filled with vegetables. Holly loved these!

Chow Mee $13

This was so delicious, I want to eat it again now! It was a delicious, charry stir fry of noodles, mock chicken & vegetables. The one vegetable that Holly flatly refuses to eat is broccoli & even she ate the broccoli out of this because it was so tasty!

Dumpling Soup $11.50

Greg is a big fan of dumpling soup & he really enjoyed this. It looked quite bland when it came out but it was actually quite well flavoured & was filled with dumplings, cauliflower, broccoli & carrots.

I really enjoyed my meal at Aunty Menas & thought it was extremely well priced (especially when converted to AUD!)

Aunty Menas

167 Cuba Street

Wellington

Planet VegMel picnic

2011-09-18T21:05:00.000+10:00

It has been aaaaaaaaaaaaages since I last blogged due to slackness, tiredness due to non sleeping toddler & general life stuff getting in the way but am feeling a bit inspired at the moment so am going with it!
Today was the Planet VegMel picnic (also world fingerpainting day - who would have guessed??) & it really reinforced why I started blogging. To sit in the sun eating amazing food with fantastic people who I would not have met otherwise is a pretty awesome thing. I remember when I was thinking about going vegan & I used to read all these blogs & read about potlucks & it sounded like an amazing little community that I wanted to be a part of & now I am a part of it & it really is an amazing & supportive community.

So on to the food. I decided to make rice paper rolls with a peanut dipping sauce after Mandee mentioned them during the week & I could not get them out of my head! Unfortunately these were really bland & boring & I was generally pretty unhappy with them & didn't even take a photo.
My dessert on the other hand, I was really happy with. I wanted to make something peanut buttery & when cleaning up my bookmarks I came across an incredibly easy recipe for peanut butter balls so decided to make them. Yum! They were like peanut butter cups in ball form but did end up a bit melty at the picnic.

Peanut butter balls (adapted from The Kitchenarian)

Ingredients

3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
7 tbsp almond meal
3 tbsp maple syrup
Dark chocolate (I used about 3/4 of a Whittakers block)

Method

Mix peanut butter, almond meal & maple syrup together until well mixed.
Roll into balls & refigerate
Melt the chocolate
Roll pb balls into the chocolate & refigerate until set.

And this is what happens after you eat too much & are all tired out from trying to grab food & chase after birds, aka, post potluck nap.

Easter buns

2011-04-16T21:30:00.000+10:00

I do like a hot cross bun around easter & haven't been overly happy with the ones that I have been buying so decided to make my own. Many years ago I attempted making them with compeletely disastrous results, they were tiny, hard little almost inedible buns & given that I was veganising an existing recipe this time I wasn't expecting great results. So it was a nice surprise that these were incredibly easy & incredibly delicious. I left the crosses off so made them as plain easter buns rather than hot cross buns.

Hot Cross Buns (based on a recipe from Taste.com.au)

Ingredients (makes 16)

1 1/2 cups warm soy milk
2 tsp (7g/1 sachet) dried yeast
1/4 cup caster sugar
60g nuttelex, melted
Egg replacer equivalent to one egg
4 cups plain flour
1 tsp salt
3 tsp mixed spice
1 1/2 cups raisins
1/2 cup marmalade

Method

Combine the milk, yeast and 1 tbs of sugar in a small bowl. Set aside in a warm, draught-free place for 10 minutes or until frothy.
Combine the milk mixture, nuttelex and made up egg replacer in a jug and whisk to combine. Combine flour, salt, mixed spice and remaining sugar in a bowl. Add the raisins and stir to combine. Make a well in the centre. Pour in the milk mixture and use a wooden spoon to stir until just combined, then use your hands to bring the dough together.
Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10-15 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Place the dough in a bowl and cover with a damp tea towel and place in a warm, draught-free place for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size.
Preheat oven to 200°C. Grease a 23cm square cake pan. Punch the dough down with your fist. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 2-3 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic. Divide dough into 16 even pieces and shape each portion into a ball. Arrange dough portions, side by side, in the prepared pan. Set aside in a warm, draught-free place for 30 minutes or until dough has risen 2cm.
Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 180°C and bake for a further 20 minutes or until golden and cooked through (buns are ready when they sound hollow when tapped on the base).
Turn onto a wire rack. Place the marmalade in a microwave safe bowl & microwave for 45 seconds or until melted. Brush hot marmalade over the buns. Enjoy with a cup of tea!

Cacao & Orange Balls

2011-04-04T19:58:00.002+10:00

Last week when I was at work I was after a snack so headed to the supermarket conveniently located next door & spotted the Emma & Tom's Life Bars. I have never seen these before but was intrigued so bought the cacao & orange flavour. This was so good, like a healthy chocolate bar! It also doesn't have any scary ingredients either, they are - dates, raw cashews, raisins, cacao powder & cold pressed orange oil.

But they are a bit on the pricey side at $2.60 each so I decided to try making my own version to take to work for snacks this week. I used figs rather than raisins because that is what I bought at the supermarket & used a tiny bit of orange rind because I only had a quarter of an orange. The orange flavour is not very strong at all but obviously if you use more rind it would be better. I also decided to make balls rather than bars. These turned out well, they are just slightly chocolately & I think they will be perfect afternoon snacks at work.

Ingredients(makes 8 balls)

1/2 cup raw cashews
7 pitted dates
4 figs
1 1/2 tsp cacao powder
orange rind to taste

Method

Throw everything into the food processor & wizz until finely chopped
Roll into balls & refigerate

Las Vegan Bakery

2011-04-02T20:47:00.001+11:00

After nearly 11 months on maternity leave (aka the best time ever!) I returned to work last week. I am lucky enough to be only working 3 days a week but it is making me appreciate the weekends again. So this weekend I decided that we should head out to breakfast to start the weekend off in the best possible way.

I hadn't been to Las Vegan since the new owners had taken over & Greg has never been so with the lure of pancakes we decided to go there. After much indecisiveness I ended up getting scrambled tofu on rosemary & olive sourdough with tempeh bacon & avocado while Greg got the sour cherry pancakes.

Greg loved his pancakes, they were fluffy & cinamonny & very delicious.

The sourdough toast with my breakfast was filled with big chunks of olives & was amazing, I would have been more than happy just to have that toast on its own. But I don't think that the olive & rosemary flavour went well with the curried flavour of the scrambled tofu. I liked both things separately but not so much together. The tempeh bacon was also really, really good & has inspired me to start experimenting with making my own.

Overall we did really enjoy our breakfasts & it was a great start to the day. We paid $25 for both meals & a coffee each. They are also quite baby friendly with a few high chairs available.

I couldn't find anyone else talking up the Las Vegan breakfast, but others who have paid a visit at other times of the day are Vegan About Town, In the Mood for Noodles & Easy as Vegan Pie.

Las Vegan Bakery
22 Smith Street

Collingwood

03 9415 9001

Bo De Trai

2011-03-23T19:39:00.000+11:00

Last weekend Greg & I found ourselves over the west side of town around lunchtime so luring Greg with the promise of wonton soup, we decided to make our way to Bo De Trai. I love Vietnamese food & it is something that I have not gone out to eat much of since being vegan so I have been wanting to go to Bo De Trai for awhile.

I was planning on having a wonton soup but it was a warm day & I ended up getting the spring rolls on rice vermicelli. This ended up being exactly what I wanted, not too heavy or spicy but with good flavours. It was plain vermicelli noodles with lettuce, mint, chopped spring rolls & it came with a sauce on the side.

Greg went with the wonton soup which he enjoyed. I tried some & it was nice, but featured coriander which I am not a fan of. I am planning on going back soon & getting it without coriander which I think will be really good.

It is cheap & cheerful with fast efficient service - what more could you want from lunch?

Other bloggers who have been to Bo De Trai are Where's the beef, This is Vegan Melbourne, Footscray Food Blog & Aduki

Bo De Trai
94 Hopkins St
Footscray
9689 9909

The Abyssinian

2011-03-20T21:10:00.000+11:00

I am so, so behind & have lots of posts to write for places I have eaten out at & some new cookbooks that I have so stay tuned!

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago a group of us went to The Abyssinian for my friend's birthday. I have never eaten Ethiopian food before, but have been keen to go here for ages so was pretty happy when told we were going there.

The staff were wonderful & suggested we all get the combination plates to share so we did as we were told. The others got meaty plates & being the only vegos there Greg & I got a vegetarian plate. It is a massive big round plate covered in delicious injera covered in little bits of all the different vego dishes. It was so, so good. The food was super tasty & fun because you get to eat with your hands & who doesn't love that?? The highlight was without a doubt the shiro which is chickpeas ground to gravy tasting deliciousnes. A big bowl of this might be a bit too much but just having a little bit was very yum. I think our meal was $35 & well worth it, they are also BYO which is my favourite thing ever. I am definitely looking forward to returning soon.

The Abyssinian
277 Racecourse Road

Kensington

03 9376 3031

Christmas Eats

2010-12-28T08:50:00.000+11:00

Christmas lunch is always held at my mum's house & whilst she is fearless with veganising desserts she sometimes gets a bit confused about what vegan main meals to make us so I like to take something along. It is especially important to make it incredibly delicious so that my omni family realise how delicious vegan eating can be. After reading a thread on PPK about what people were making for Christmas I read about a Jamie Oliver recipe in the December/January issue of Delicious magazine for Pumpkin & Mushroom Wellington & knew immediately that this was going to be what I brought to lunch.
This recipe incorporates lots of ingredients that I love - pumpkin, mushrooms, chestnuts, sage, pine nuts, lemon, rosemary... This is not a difficult recipe, but there are a lot of steps so it does take awhile. I am not going to type out the recipe because it is loooong, but someone has done it here with beautiful photos to boot. I did really enjoy this, as did my family bit I found the cinnamon flavour a bit overpowering so would reduce that by half if I were to make it again.
I hope everyone has had as wonderful and delicious Christmases as I was lucky enough to.

Christmas Eve Eats

2010-12-26T11:55:00.000+11:00

This year since it was Holly's first Christmas and we would be spending all of Christmas Day with my family I decided that it would be good to have a nice meal for just the three of us on Christmas Eve. I ended up spending a lot of time on Christmas Eve preparing my lunch for the next day so decided to go the easiest option & get a Sanitarium vegie roast. It was my first time eating this & I actually didn't mind it except the glaze on it was waaaaay too sweet so I would definitely leave it off next time. To go with this I made Vegan Dad's scalloped potatoes & butternut pumpkin with roasted chestnuts. This is ugly but it is so, so good!!!! I followed the recipe exactly except that I added in a bit of nooch to the sauce & I used canned chestnuts since fresh aren't in season. I will definitely make this again. I also just steamed since green beans as Holly loves them so we have them with most meals & served them with this mushroom gravy but I found it to be way to strong in molasses flavour.

I made an easy dessert from ice cream which I softened & then mixed in chopped dark chocolate & dried fruit which I macerated in Grand Marnier overnight - very easy & very tasty.

Vegan MoFo - Zucchini stuffed with quinoa

2010-11-30T12:21:00.000+11:00

Last day of Vegan MoFo! I think it has really helped doing an A-Z because it forced me to do a certain number of posts. I have enjoyed doing my alphabet mofo & have loved having so many blogs to read.

For the last meal of Vegan MoFo 2010 it is zucchini stuffed with quinoa, this is a good weeknight meal & is healthy & tasty.

Ingredients (the filling makes enough for about 4 halves depending on the size of your zucchini)

2 zucchinis
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 onion diced
1/2 cup mushrooms
1/2 cup plain pasta sauce
1/2 cup uncooked quinoa
1/4 cup tvp (I would leave this out next time because you couldn't even tell it was in there)
2 cups water or staock (I used water)
3 tablespoons sliced olives
6 sage leaves chopped
Cheezly

Method

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees
Cut zucchini in half & scoop out the insides & put aside, leaving about 1cm around the edges
Put the zucchini in a lightly greased oven dish skin side down, cover with foil & cook for about 15 minutes on until tender
Heat the oil in a frypan that has a lid & add onion
Roughly chop the zucchini flesh & add to frypan with the mushrooms
When the vegetables have softened add the rest of the ingredients (except the cheezly), cover & cook for 20-30 minutes but keep checking, stirring & add more water if needed until the quinoa is cooked
Season to taste
Fill the zucchini with the quinoa mixture & top with grated or thinly sliced cheezly & bake for another 15 minutes

I think I overcooked mine a bit & the cheezly went a bit funny. This is what happens when you go off to feed a baby with dinner cooking in the oven.

Vegan MoFo - Yakisoba

2010-11-29T17:04:00.000+11:00

Happy second last day of Vegan MoFo! I think I have now officially lost my mofo mojo & will be happy to have a few days off blogging coming up.

Yakisoba is essentially a soba noodle stir fry & the sauce that I used was 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar & 1 tsp sugar. I used tofu, zucchini, carrot, cabbage & ginger in with the noodles. I didn't like this at first but as I kept eating it grew on me & I quite liked the vinegary flavour.

Vegan MoFo - Xacuti 'chicken'

2010-11-28T20:04:00.000+11:00

There are not many meals starting with X so I was pretty limited for choices for today. Xacuti is a Goan curry & is extremely delicious. This is possibly my favourite meal of the month & it is the first time I have ever made a curry from scratch & it was nowhere near as difficult as I thought it would be.

I used this recipe for the xacuti chicken & subbed canola oil for ghee & mock chicken & potatoes for the actual chicken & I didn't garnish with coriander because it is foul. I served my curry with this rice which I also subbed canola oil for ghee & which was also super delicious. I am always making my rice this way from now on when we are eating Indian food.

Vegan MoFo - Waldorf Salad

2010-11-26T20:40:00.000+11:00

I haven't eaten a waldorf salad for years so I was looking forward to this & I actually really enjoyed it even though it is super simple.
I just mixed some vegan mayo with lemon juice & tossed diced pink lady apple, toasted walnuts & chopped celery in it & then put it all on top of some cos lettuce leaves.

Vegan MoFo - Vermicelli Salad & Vegan Croissants!

2010-11-25T19:25:00.000+11:00

Today's MoFo post for V was just supposed to be about my vermicelli salad but then I discovered something very, very exciting today.

La Panella now sell vegan croissants!!!

Even more excitingly they have plain & chocolate!!! I haven't visited La Panella for awhile so I am unsure how long they have had them, but I did of course have to buy one to try it. I went for a plain one & I tried a bit & I didn't love it, but then I heated it up & added some jam & I did love it. I now think that I must go back & try a chocolate one.

My vermicelli salad was a bit boring in comparison, I prepare my noodles & then toss in a mixture of sweet chilli sauce & rice wine vinegar & then top with lots of vegies. I used lettuce, carrot, snow peas, blanched broccoli & peanuts.

Vegan MoFo - Udon Noodle Stir Fry

2010-11-24T20:23:00.000+11:00

I don't often make stir fries because I don't think I make them particularly well, but this was really nice. Of course I didn't measure anything so I will never be able to replicate it again.

In my stir fry was:

Garlic
Ginger
Tofu
Broccoli
Asparagus
Snow peas
Mushrooms
Chopped peanuts as a topping

For the sauce I used:

Vegetarian mushroom oyster sauce
Soy sauce
Mysterious seasoning sauce that is in my sauce cupboard
Sweet soy sauce
Water
Cornflour

Vegan MoFo - Tempeh Sausage Pastry Puffs

2010-11-23T21:19:00.000+11:00

I was looking for a good tempeh recipe so decided to make the tempeh sausage pastry puffs from Vegan Brunch. These are quite nice & really easy. It makes quite a lot of the tempeh mix so you can do as I did & just make some squares & use the leftover tempeh in sandwiches - yum.

Vegn MoFo - Soba Noodle Sushi (and Sweet Potato for Holly)

2010-11-22T14:47:00.000+11:00

I saw this on Courtney's blog awhile ago & immediately wanted to make it since I love both soba noodles & sushi. This is super easy & really good & it is an amazingly fast meal from starting to eating was only about 15 minutes. My sushi contained tofu which had been marinated in soy sauce & hoisin, red capsicum & avocado. The recipe is here. Courtney is also doing an A-Z for Vegan MoFo so check out her blog to see what she is doing for the month.

And, while we are on food starting with S, we gave Holly some sweet potato yesterday for her first foray into the world of solid food! She was not super interested & I think she might still be a bit too young but it was very, very cute.

Vegan Mofo - Roasted Vegetable Salad

2010-11-21T20:19:00.000+11:00

I love a roasted vegetable salad & this one was a winner, I think it was the best I have ever made. I roasted up some vegetables that were cut into chunks - sweet potato, pumpkin, eggplant, red capsicum & zucchini & then mixed a pesto dressing through them. For the pesto dressing I made a pesto with basil, garlic, toasted cashews, olive oil & nutritional yeast all blended in the food processor & then thinned it out a bit with some red wine vinegar. Then served it all on a bed of mixed salad leaves - healthy & delicious!

Vegan Mofo - Quinoa Salad

2010-11-19T19:19:00.000+11:00

I am always looking for more ways to use quinoa & this was an awesome salad so I will be making it again. It is just cooked quinoa with blanched asparagus, blanched broccoli, chickpeas, halved cherry tomatoes & roasted capsicum. I based the dressing on this recipe from Gluten Free Goddess, I don't know what golden balsamic is so I used regular balsamic vinegar. I topped the salad with some pistachios & it was super, super delicious.

Vegan MoFo - Pistachio Crusted Tofu

2010-11-18T19:05:00.000+11:00

I wanted to make something with pistachios for P because I love them & I came up with the idea of pistachio crusted tofu. I marinated the tofu in a mix of cranberry sauce, apple cider vinegar & olive oil & then topped it with finely chopped pistachios mixed with panko breadcrumbs & then baked it for about 15 minutes. I really liked the flavour of this, but the topping did not stay on very well. I served this with the most delicious salad of tomato, roasted red capsicum, avocado & edamame.

Vegan MoFo - Orange Marmalade Oat Bread

2010-11-17T15:25:00.000+11:00

For O I made this bread, which has heaps of good reviews. However, I found it quite bland as the marmalade flavour is very, very subtle. I do like that it isn't super sweet and I think that it might make great french toast though so I will give that a go.

Vegan MoFo - Noodle Soup

2010-11-16T21:38:00.000+11:00

I have mentioned before that I don't often make the same thing twice, but this soup is an exception. This is on regular rotation in our house, we usually have it once every week to two weeks. It is delicious & best of all it makes hardly any dishes unlike pretty much everything else I cook!

Ingredients (makes 2 big servings)

5 cups stock (I use massel chicken stock)
2/3 cups dried shitake mushrooms
90 gms dried soba noodles
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp miso paste
12 dumplings (I use frozen bought ones)
1 bunch pak choy

Method

Heat the stock in a large saucepan & add the shitake mushrooms
Simmer until the mushrooms have softened, about 10 minutes
Add the soy sauce & miso paste
Add the dumplings which take about 15 minutes to cook from frozen
Add the noodles & the pak choy& cook for about 4 minutes further until the noodles are cooked
Serve & top with a couple of drops of sesame oil if desired or some chilli sauce

Vegan MoFo - Mushrooms 3 ways!

2010-11-15T20:38:00.000+11:00

Halfway through the alphabet today! So, in celebration here are three meals that I have made with mushrooms recently - yes, we are do like a mushroom in this house.

Mushroom Tart
I loved the idea of making a mushroom tart & topping it with asparagus but this was disappointing. You know when you start making a recipe & you know immediately that it is not going to work but you have already committed to it so you decide to keep going anyway? Well that is what happened here. I used this recipe & as soon as I started making I realised that the quantities were no way near going to fill a normal size tart so I just added more of all the ingredients in & it just wasn't quite right & the filling was really dry. The people that I made it for said that they liked it but they were possibly just being polite...

Mushroom Schnitzel
It never occurred to me before to make a mushroom schnitzel but when I read about it on Of the Kitten Kind I thought it was such a brilliant idea. I used this recipe but mine obviously did not turn out as beautiful & golden as in that picture. I did like these but I found them a bit boring, I think adding a gravy or turning them into a parma would be a better option.

Mushroom Sandwich
This is something that we eat quite a bit as they are easy & delicious. This sandwich features tomato chuntney, marinated mushrooms, caramelised onion, tofutti cheese, tomato, baby spinach & avocado.
The mushrooms were enormous so I only needed half in each sandwich & I marinated the mushrooms in a mix of garlic, soy sauce & veg oyster sauce.
These sandwiches were the goods, but normally I prefer to use rolls as the mushrooms make the bread soggy in no time at all.

Vegan MoFo - Lasagne

2010-11-14T19:25:00.001+11:00

I had this recipe bookmarked for awhile & finally made it last night. It is not your traditional lasagne as it uses slices of zucchini for the pasta & I am a big pan of using zucchini in place in pasta & it worked really well here, as did the quinoa which was delicious. The flavour was very strong, which may have been from the pasta sauce that I used, but I loved it & I am very happy to have lots of leftovers.

Vegan MoFo - Korma

2010-11-12T20:46:00.000+11:00

I kept changing my mind on what to make for K and in the end I went with a korma. I used this recipe from food.com but used light coconut milk instead of soaking the coconut & used broccoli & beans as my vegetables. I just found this quite boring & wouldn't make it again, it is also pretty ugly looking!

However, the star of the meal was the sweet potato naan which I had on the side. I used this recipe & it was just as delicious as it sounds.

Vegan MoFo - Jambalaya

2010-11-11T18:24:00.001+11:00

Day 10 already & I decided to make jambalaya. This was delicious & easy, I loosely based it on a vegweb recipe & I made it using ingredients I had on hand - win!.

Ingredients (makes 4 large servings)

1 onion diced
1 clove garlic crushed
1 tsp olive oil
1 red capsicum diced
1 medium zucchini diced
1 1/2 cups tomato passata
1/2 cups rice
3 cups stock (I used massel chicken stock)
Cajun spice mix
Artichoke hearts to serve
Jalapenos to taste (optional)

Method

Heat olive oil in a large pot which has a lid and saute garlic, onion, capsicum and zucchini until all cooked.
Add spice mix, rice, passata and stock to pot. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally (uncovered).
Cover pot and reduce heat to low
Cook for 30 minutes or until rice is done, stirring occasionally.
Top with artichoke hearts & jalapenos

Vegan MoFo - Ice Cream

2010-11-10T19:57:00.001+11:00

Day 9 & my first fail!
I decided to try making an ice cream & don't have an ice cream maker so when I stumbled across this recipe I thought it would be perfect & nothing sounds more delicious than peanut butter, coconut, maple syrup ice cream. I used regular soy milk rather than soy creamer & when I was putting it in the blender I did wonder if half a cup was too much & I should try a lesser amount but decided to live on the edge & use the full amount. I shouldn't have. This came out so, so runny! It tastes divine but it is pretty much a milkshake rather than ice cream. I have put it back into the freezer to see if it is ok when it freezes up, but as of now - this is what it looks like.

ETA - It froze up super hard so we waited until it softened & then ate it &it was sooooo good. It got a bit icy but not too bad. It was so delicious that I would make it again for sure.

Vegan MoFo - Hot Dogs

2010-11-09T20:17:00.000+11:00

Ok, so today is bit of a cop out but sometimes you need a quick, easy trashtastic meal & this certainly fits the bill.
It is a Sanitarium vegie sausage on a white roll with dijon mustard, tomato sauce & caramelised onions.

Vegan MoFo - Gozleme

2010-11-08T19:40:00.001+11:00

Day 7 of Vegan MoFo & this was one of my favourite days so far.
When Greg asked what I was cooking & said that it was gozlemes, the best way I could describe them was like a flat calzone that is pan fried - how can you go wrong with that? These were great, I can't believe I have never made them before. I based them on this recipe from taste.com.au. For the filling I mixed up tofutti cream cheese with some of this sesame parmesan which I spread over the dough & topped with baby spinach leaves.

Vegan MoFo - French Toast

2010-11-07T14:15:00.000+11:00

Is there anything better than french toast for breakfast? I have tried making a few different french toast recipes in the past & when I was googling recipes for the best french toast I came across a few recipes that featured nutritional yeast which I found odd but I decided to go with it. Luckily, you can't taste the nutritional yeast in the end result at all as I was not looking forward to cheesy toast!

I used slices of baguette & soaked them in the following mixture:

1/2 cup soy milk
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tbsp plain flour
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
decent shake of cinnamon

They were then pan fried in a frypan just lightly sprayed with some canola oil. I served these with blueberries & some tofutti cream cheese mixed with maple syrup.

This is an awesome meal.

Vegan MoFo - Eggplant Gratin

2010-11-05T18:12:00.000+11:00

E is for eggplant - one of my favourite vegetables! I love eggplant when it is cooked until it is soft & silky & this is exactly how it turned out in this eggplant gratin. It is not the most photogenic meal, but it was well liked - even by my mother in law!

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 eggplant sliced
1 onion diced
1 clove garlic crushed
1 tsp olive oil
Fresh chopped sage to taste
Fresh chopped basil to taste
1 1/2 cups tomato passata
1/2 cup red wine
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/4 cup panko
1 tbsp nutritional yeast

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees
Heat olive oil in frypan over medium heat
Add onion & garlic, cook stirring until onion is translucent & cooked through
Add tomato paste & cook stirring for a minute
Add the red wine & allow to simmer to cook off the alcohol
Add the passata & leave to simmer for around 10 minutes or longer if you want
Season to taste & add in the fresh herbs
Get your cooking dish out & spread a thin layer of sauce over the base of it - I cooked my gratin in a loaf pan, but you can also use a casserole/lasagne dish
Place a layer of eggplant slices on top & top with a layer of sauce
Repeat the layers until you have used all the ingredients up or reached the top of your dish, finishing with a layer of sauce
Mix together the panko & nutritional yeast in a small bowl & spread it over the top layer of sauce
Place in oven for around 45 minutes or until the eggplant is really soft & well cooked through - the breadcrumb topping of mine browned quite quickly so I covered it with foil for the reemainder of the cooking time.

Vegan MoFo - Dumplings

2010-11-04T18:45:00.000+11:00

There is a lot of love for dumplings in my household & we usually just buy the frozen ones, but on the odd occasion I do make them as well. The one thing that makes dumpling making a whole lot easier is a dumpling press, it seals the edges really well so that your dumplings stay together & you don't get filling leaking out everywhere.

For the filling of my dumplings, I chopped up some button mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, silverbeet & water chestnuts which I cooked off in a frying pan with garlic, ginger, some silken tofu & a splash of veg oyster sauce. Once it was all cooked through I put a teaspoon of the filling in a dumpling wrapper & pressed - easy! They were then steamed for around 5-10 minutes until the wrappers were looking translucent. I drizzled them with a mixture of soy sauce, black vinegar & chilli paste & served these with scallion flatbread which I also made last MoFo.

Vegan MoFo - Caesar Salad

2010-11-03T13:32:00.001+11:00

There is so much good food that I could have made starting with C, but in the end I decided on a caesar salad since it has been a long time since I ate one & I do love them. I had some tofu that needed using so I made a "chicken" caesar salad.

This is an easy meal - crunchy cos lettuce leaves topped with creamy caesar dressing, croutons, bacon bits & crumbed tofu. The dressing was really easy, I used the one from Veganomicon & I used this recipe from The Fat-Fueled Vegan for the crumbed tofu. The croutons were just squares of bread I had cut from a multigrain bread roll & fried in a little bit of olive oil.

Without tofu

Vegan MoFo - Banana Bread

2010-11-02T16:04:00.000+11:00

I have been doing some recipe testing for the lovely Carla from Easy as Vegan Pie recently & made her gluten free banana bread. This recipe is such a winner! Ever since I made it Greg has been not so subtly suggesting that I make it again because it was so good. I don't often make the same thing twice but this is the second time I made this & it will now be my go to banana bread recipe.

Vegan MoFo - Apple & Strawberry Crumble

2010-11-01T19:46:00.002+11:00

I don't often make crumbles because my mum makes the best crumbles ever & mine pale into comparison, but it is a very quick & easy to veganise dessert option & you can mix it up by using different fruits or putting different nuts & spices in the topping.

Apple & Strawberry Crumble

Ingredients (serves 4)

2 apples peeled & diced
10 strawberries, halved & stems removed
Juice of half lemon
1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 cup oats
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup nuttelex

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees
Place apples in frypan or saucepan over medium heat with the lemon juice & a couple of tablespoons of water
Cook apples until softened, keep adding water when it dries up
As the apples are cooking, add all the rest of the ingredients to a medium sized bowl & rub together until well mixed & resembling breadcrumbs
Transfer apples to a baking dish & top with the strawberries, or if you have cooked your apples in an oven proof saucepan like I did you can use that as your baking dish
Top the fruit with the crumble mix & place in the oven until browned (about 15 minutes)

Vegan MoFo - An A-Z of deliciousness

2010-10-31T18:52:00.000+11:00

I have been a bit slack blogging lately, but I have ben saving myself for Vegan Mofo which I will be participating in again this year. My plan for the month of November is to do an A-Z of vegan food that I will be cooking - starting tomorrow with an apple & strawberry crumble for A. I love reading all the Vegan Mofo blogs & am looking forward to it kicking off. You can read more about Vegan Mofo here.

Some things I have cooked during my absence

2010-10-14T20:47:00.000+11:00

Things have been pretty crazy in our house over the last month which is why I have been super slack on the blogging front. Greg & I got married last weekend & have had our house overtaken by his New Zealand family & friends.

I have a few photos of some things we have eaten lately:

Chestnut & Mushroom Soup - This was so, so good!! It was basically sauteed mushrooms blended with roasted chestnuts, stock & soy milk. It was rich & velvety & divine.

Broccoli Soup - I don't really remember what was in this, but despite it looking a bit unappetising it was good.

Rosemary Bread Rolls

Easy as (vegan) Pie vegan sausage rolls - crap photo of SUPER delicious sausage rolls.

Broccoli Quinoa - Yum

Pumpkin & Olive tart - based on this recipe

Good things to do with hommus

2010-09-16T15:43:00.002+10:00

I love hommus & often have some in my fridge but get bored of just eating it as a dip or on sandwiches. So, here are 2 other super tasty ways to eat hommus.

Hommus stuffed mushrooms.
Greg was looking through a recipe book in a book shop & saw a recipe for this, I was skeptical that it would work - I think my reaction was "cooked hommus?? Yuck!!" But he was very keen so I gave it a go & it is really delicious as well as being dead easy.

Bake a portabello mushroom for 10 minutes on about 180
Chop up some semi dried tomatoes & mix into some hommus
Remove from oven & spread the hommus mix thickly over the inside of the mushroom
Top with some pine nuts
Return to the oven for another 10 minutes

Creamy Lemon Pasta
I used this recipe, but didn't measure anything - gotta love a recipe where you can just throw it all together & it works! I had never thought about putting hommus on pasta before but this was really good & also dead easy.

East Brunswick Club - Weekend Breakfast II

2010-09-06T08:56:00.000+10:00

For Greg's first Father's Day I told him that I would take him for a meal of his choice & he decided that he would like to go back to EBC for breakfast & try the pancakes.

I was quite hungry so got the Vegan Big Breakfast (which Greg got last time) & he went for The Elvis pancakes.
My breakfast was good, but I am still not sure that I love their scrambled tofu, although I think it was better than last time. The toast is also much better, it is now turkish bread & it comes with nuttelex on it. But the whole time I was jealously watching Greg eat his pancakes because they looked amazing! I had a little bit & they were so, so good - fluffy & perfect. They came with heaps of maple syrup, fake bacon, banana, ice cream & peanut butter. Greg really enjoyed them & I want to go back next weekend & eat this.

Vegan Big Breakfast

The Elvis Pancakes

Breakfast is available on weekends from 12-4pm & they now also do $12 parmas on the weekend after 2pm.

East Brunswick Club

280 Lygon Street

East Brunswick

03 9388 9794

Where's The Beef Week - Day 7 - Curried Eggplant Soup

2010-09-05T19:50:00.000+10:00

The final night of my Where's The Beef week! It has been ages since I have had a week where every meal has been a winner taste-wise & that us exactly what has happened this week. I am actually keen to try more recipes from Cindy & Michael's blog now since I have had such good results.

I love eggplant & I love soup so I was pretty excited to make Curried Eggplant Soup (which was via Yeah that vegan shit via Fatfree vegan kitchen), but it was probably my least favourite meal of the week. My curry powder is kind of old though so I think that might have been an issue. That being said, I did have leftovers for lunch the next week & I did like it a lot more & I did like the soft chunks of eggplant in it.

Where's The Beef Week - Day 6 - Sort-of Spring Rolls

2010-09-04T20:41:00.000+10:00

These were my only kind of fail for the week, but I think it was more my fault rather than the recipe. I made up the sort-of spring rolls which use rice paper & then left them on my wooden chopping board while I fed Holly. Then I came back half an hour or so later & they had stuck a bit so when I cooked them quite a few had holes in them & completely fell apart. They were still really tasty & I really liked the rice paper rather than the usual spring roll pastry. I think I need to try these again.

Where's The Beef Week - Day 5 - Vegetarian Hor Fun

2010-09-03T21:14:00.000+10:00

This was originally a recipe by Pip, which I found on Where's the Beef here. I normally have issues with making stir fry type dishes because they just don't work that well for me but this was great. I halved the amount of stock & increased the amount of cornflour & my sauce thickened up beautifully. I also just used extra firm tofu rather than the fried tofu puffs & added in some chopped almonds before serving. I always have the ingredients for this on hand & it is quick, easy & tasty so this is another meal that is now going on regular rotation.

Where's The Beef Week - Day 4 - Cheesy Tofu Fritters

2010-09-02T19:31:00.000+10:00

Day 4, I made the Cheesy Tofu Fritters which are a veganised gluten free version of goats cheese fritters. These are so, so good! I followed the recipe exactly, but also added in a little bit of grated mozzarella cheezly into the mix & I only cooked them in a tiny bit of oil. I served these with a simple & delicious cranberry gravy just made from cranberry sauce, massel chicken stock & flour, I reduced the gravy too much though & didn't make nearly enough.
This meal is going on regular rotation.

Where's the Beef week - Day 3 - I can't believe it's not meat pies

2010-09-01T20:35:00.000+10:00

More deliciousness! I really liked these 'I can't believe it's not meat pies' & found the filling not unlike the La Panella pies, but with red wine. These are really easy & really versatile because you can flavour them to your tastes. I left out the mushrooms because I didn't have any but next time I will certainly add them in next time. I used the following ingredients:

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup massel beef stock
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 cup tvp
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp flour

Where's The Beef Week - Day 2 - Felafels & ZIppy Warm Potato Salad

2010-08-31T20:22:00.000+10:00

I have tried to make felafels in the past with a very poor result so wasn't expecting to really like these that much, but I loved them! This is the recipe that will stop me ever using the packet mix again. I had them drizzled with sweet chilli sauce & made this potato salad to go with them which was also really nice.

Where's The Beef Week - Day 1 - Maple Marinated Tofu

2010-08-30T20:13:00.000+10:00

I am the sort of person that plans everything & I am pretty organised so now that I am on maternity leave & can't use that at work I have to channel that elsewhere. At the moment it is mostly going into wedding planning, gym training & meal planning. For my meal planning, every weekend I sit down & work out all our meals for the week, lunches & dinners, and write up a shopping list & then hit Vic Market, the supermarket & any specialty shops like the Asian supermarket or Radical Grocery.
This week I noticed that I had a couple of recipes bookmarked from Where's The Beef so decided to make all my dinners this week from that blog. When I went through their recipes working out what to make I had trouble narrowing it down to just a week's worth, there was so much I wanted to make!

So, day 1. I had some tofu that needed using so I decided to make this marinade recipe to make maple marinated tofu. This marinade is so, so delicious! I am definitely making it again. It was a super quick, easy & tasty way to cook tofu & I just had it with some steamed vegies - yum.

Vegie Hut

2010-08-26T18:51:00.000+10:00

We had a family dinner on a Monday night recently. The original plan had been to go to Enlightened Cuisine but they aren't open on Monday nights, so in the end it was decided to go to Vegie Hut as it is pretty much in the middle of the 3 locations that the 6 of us were coming from.

There were a couple of issues - first of all, there was a big table with way too many people around it right behind us which made those of us on the side of the table next to them really squished in although there were quite a few empty tables. Secondly, the service was pretty much non existent, we had to flag down waitresses to order, to clear the table & to get the bill & no one was ever offered drinks. Thirdly, and maybe this is just because I love the Enlightened Cuisine banquet, but for the most part I found the food very meh. I am guessing that my family felt the same way because there were heaps of left overs & no one took any.

So, the food. We got a banquet which was pretty reasonable at $139 for 6 people with far more than we could eat. Apologies for the awful photos.


Oriental Entrees Platter - in the middle were pickled vegetables which were really good, definitely the highlight of the platter

Shark Fin Soup - it was very gelatinous, but the flavour was gingery & quite nice


I think these were chilli prawns although they were not at all spicy - they were good though, deep fried prawniness

Lamb hot pot - quite nice with big pieces of mushrooms in it

This was some sort of fish, I wasn't a big fan of this at all

Black Pepper Steak - This was really good

Bamboo string on Chinese veggies - I don't even remember what this tasted like, but there was a lot left over

Dessert - this was delicious, my highlight of the meal! It was like a lychee juice with jelly, sultanas, goji berries & lychees in it - I could have eaten a lot of this. Note a crashed out Holly in the background getting cuddles from her Aunty

I think the meal would have been better of we chose our own food, I just think the banquet might have been a bad move. I am still a huge fan of their Sunday yum cha.

Other Melb veg bloggers who have been to Vegie Hut are: Where's the Beef, Lisa & Vegan About Town.

Vegie Hut

984 Whitehorse Road

Box Hill

03 9898 2287

Baked Chili with Cornbread Biscuit Topping

2010-08-25T11:27:00.001+10:00

This is a recipe which I adapted from La Dolce Vegan, I don't have the book but found the recipe online & thought it looked good. When I was making the Cornbread I thought it seemed like there was a lot of sugar in it & I did find that it was really sweet. The topping was still really tasty but if I was too make it again I would at least halve the amount of sugar. I also found that the chili itself wasn't that great, it seemed to be missing something, but there was supposed to be pickled green chillies added so maybe that might have made a difference. I think I would make the topping again but change up the chili quite a bit.

INGREDIENTS FOR CHILI

1/2 large onion, diced
1/2 large red capsicum, diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 cup tvp
400mls passata
1/2 tin kidney beans
corn kernels from 1 cob of corn
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cocoa
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1 clove crushed garlic

INGREDIENTS FOR TOPPING

1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon soy milk
1 tablespoon soymilk or 1 tablespoon almond milk
1/2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup polenta
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon canola oil

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Lightly oil or spray with oil 4 ramekins

In a large saucepan saute the onion, capsicum & garlic in the olive oil until the onions are translucent. Add remaining chili ingredients and simmer 5-10 minutes.

While chili is cooking mix soy milk and vinegar. In a separate bowl mix the flour, polenta, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Add the oil and the milk mixture, stirring until just mixed.

Transfer chili to ramekins and spoon the cornmeal batter on to the top.

Bake uncovered for 15-20 minutes.

Breakfast after dark

2010-08-16T20:30:00.000+10:00

I am a big fan of what my friend Anthony calls "breakfast after dark" which is breakfasty foods eaten for dinner. This version of breakfast after dark featured scrambled tofu, roasted tomato, mushrooms & an awesome hash brown. The hash brown was by far the highlight of the meal & was based on a recipe I found on food.com. These hash browns are really good & there is a possibility that I ate 3 of them.

Hash Browns
INGREDIENTS

1/2cup water (approximately)
1/4 cup raw cashews
1 tsp onion powder
1 clove crushed garlic
1 tsp massel chicken stock powder
1/2 small onion, finely diced (I whizzed mine up in the food processor so it was really fine)
2 large potatoes peeled

METHOD

Boil potatoes until just cooked through & set aside until cool enough to handle
Blend cashews and water with garlic, stock powder & onion powder until smooth - I started with about 1/4 cup water & just added more until it was really smooth
Grate the potatoes into a bowl & add the onion to it
Pour the cashew mixture into the potato & onion & mix together well, add salt & pepper if you like
Shape the potato mix into 4 flattish balls & place on a greased or lined tray
Turn the oven on to 200degrees & bake the hash browns for about 30 minutes or until well browned

Mini Crustless Tofu Quiches

2010-08-15T20:30:00.000+10:00

Johanna made a version of these for a potluck ages ago & I didn't try them but bookmarked the recipe intending on making them one day. Well, fast forward 8ish months & that day finally came. I really liked these. I followed the recipe from FatFreeVegan Kitchen but used corn instead of mushrooms. Like Johanna, I also found them very moist but I was possibly impatient & didn't cook them for long enough, but they still tasted good! I had them both hot & cold & both were good.

Gluten Free Zucchini Pancakes

2010-08-13T19:26:00.001+10:00

I found this recipe while searching for yet more ways to use chickpeas & stumbled across these which contain chickpea flour. I made these last week, they are really easy & they are pretty good. I didn't use the herbs or the zucchini flowers because I didn't have them but they were still tasty. I had them with chutney & some vegies. The recipe says that it serves 2 but I made 4 smaller pancakes & 1 pancake each was plenty. They were also good reheated for lunch the next day.

Chickpea & mushroom sausages

2010-08-11T21:19:00.000+10:00

Last time I went to Costco I bought a slab of tins of chickpeas and lamented how much my life has changed because it doesn't seem like that long ago that I used to buy slabs of beer. Anyway, now that I have a cupboard full of chickpeas I am always on the look out for chickpea recipes so when I came across this mushroom & sausage recipe on Food.com (which used to be recipezaar). I am completely aware that this is not the most attractive looking meal, but it was really good. I had these with mashed potatoes, steamed vegies & made the world's easiest miso gravy to go with it, it is literally just miso paste & water & tastes really good.

Joy Cupcakes

2010-07-31T20:26:00.000+10:00

Greg & I made a trip out to Doncaster shopping centre today as I had a pressing need to buy a Mimco headband. Once I had accomplished my mission we were wandering around when we walked past a cupcake stand & Greg noticed that they had vegan cupcakes. I was pretty excited about this so we bought some to take home. They only have two flavours that they do vegan - black & white (which I think is chocolate & vanilla) and red velvet. Black & white are available on Thursday, Friday & Saturday with red velvet being available on the other days. Some of the other flavours that they have sound amazing like baklava, toffee apple & salted caramel so it is a bit disappointing that only the more boring flavours are available in vegan but it is still pretty exciting to be out at a suburban shopping centre & be able to buy a vegan cupcake.

Anyway the cupcakes themselves are quite nice - they are really moist with a rich chocolatey flavour , I wasn't a huge fan of the icing though because it didn't really taste like anything. They are pretty expensive at $4 each but if you happen to be out shopping & need a sugar fix at least there is an available option.

Joy Cupcakes
Westfield Doncaster
619 Doncaster Road
Doncaster

Tempeh & Eggplant Pot Pies

2010-07-27T18:29:00.000+10:00

After reading this post on The Tropical Vegan, I decided to make the Tempeh & Eggplant Pot Pies from The Vegan Table as I had some tempeh in my freezer & an eggplant in my fridge. I followed the recipe exactly, although I left the celery out because I hate it & for the tomato sauce I used a can of diced tomatoes. I really liked these, but next time I make them I will add tomato paste & red wine to the filling to give it a bit of extra flavour. The biscuit topping is amazing! I want to eat nothing but pot pies topped with that biscuit topping from now on.

Crepes with mushrooms & broccoli

2010-07-26T12:15:00.000+10:00

There has been a lot of talk in my household about crepes recently, probably due to a recent & delicious visit to Coco Loco where we had savoury crepes.

I have never made crepes before because I thought they would be really difficult given how thin they are but they are surprisingly easy, although mine could have been a bit thinner & they weren't really very round. I wanted to make a mushroom filling & I had some tofutti cream cheese & cheezly that I wanted to use up so made up a cheesey sauce to fill the crepes with.

Crepes (makes 5 smallish crepes)

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup plain flour
3/4 cup soy milk
1 tbsp canola oil
egg replacer made up to equal 1 egg
pinch salt

METHOD

Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl & whisk well.
Heat a large frypan & lightly oil (I brushed mine lightly with canola oil)
Ladle mixture into the frypan, pick up frypan & swirl it so the batter coats the bottom of the pan
Flip the crepe over once it has dried on the top
Cook the other side & then remove from pan

Mushroom & Broccoli filling

INGREDIENTS

About a cup of sliced mushrooms (I used 7 mushrooms)
Half a head of broccoli cut into small pieces
1 clove garlic
1 tsp olive oil
4 tbsps of Tofutti better than cream cheese
1/2 cup soy milk
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsps herb & garlic cheezly grated

METHOD

Heat olive oil in a frypan
Add mushrooms & garlic & cook through
Steam broccoli until cooked through
Remove the mushrooms from the frypan
Whisk together the cream cheese & soy milk in the frypan until the cream cheese has melted
Stir in the nutritional yeast & lemon juice until well combined & thickened
Add in the cheezly, mushrooms & broccoli & stir until the vegies have heated & the cheezley has melted
Serve the mixture rolled in the pre-made crepes

Soba noodles and salt & pepper tofu

2010-07-24T19:35:00.000+10:00

I recently stumbled across the blog eat me, delicious & decided to make a couple of recipes from there for dinner which I thought would go together nicely.

The recipe for the noodles was right down my alley since soba noodles & edamame are two of my favourite foods. This was really easy to make & the flavours were quite light & subtle & I really enjoyed it.

I really liked the salt & pepper tofu recipe & even though I had no garlic, chilli or spring onion it was still really good (if not the most photogenic meal) & I plan on making it again & again.

Pumpkin Ravioli with Pesto

2010-07-20T19:26:00.000+10:00

For the last couple of months I kept buying pumpkins with the intentions of making this but only just got around to it last week & it was so easy & delicious that I should have made it sooner. I would have liked a bit more texture though, so next time I make it I will toss through some whole pine nuts before serving.

Pumpkin Ravioli

INGREDIENTS

500gm pumpkin cut into smallish evenly sized pieces
Half a packet of silken tofu
Half tub of Tofutti better than cream cheese
I packet of wonton/gow gee wrappers

METHOD

Roast pumpkin until soft & starting to brown
In a food processor blend the tofu & cream cheese until smooth & well combined
Add the pumpkin to the food processor & blend into the tofu & cream cheese, add salt & pepper to taste
Put a teaspoon of the pumpkin mix into the centre of a wonton wrapper & press the edges together. I used a dumpling press because I have one & because it seals the edges really, really well so when you are cooking the ravioli they don't open up.
Add the ravioli to a big pot of boiling salted water & remove & drain once it floats to the top.
Heat the pesto in a frypan & toss the drained ravioli in the the pesto.

Pesto

INGREDIENTS

1 bunch basil
1 tbsp miso paste
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp pine nuts
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp nutritional yeast

METHOD

Toast the pine nuts in a dry fry pan until starting to brown
Blend all ingredients together in a food processor until well combined

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cheesecake Slice

2010-07-16T10:33:00.000+10:00

For my dessert to take to Carla's Winter Warmer Potluck at the last minute I decided to make a peanut butter chocolate cheesecake in slice form.

I based it on this recipe & de-glutened it by making the base from crushed Leda choculence biscuits mixed with melted nuttelex. But then I stupidly used a soy milk that isn't gluten free in the cheesecake. This was alright but it wasn't as amazing as I hoped it would be.

Gluten free vegan sausage rolls

2010-07-14T18:57:00.000+10:00

For Carla's recent Winter Warmer potluck I decided to try de-glutening the famous Where's the Beef sausage rolls. I actually just bought gluten free pastry & then went to make them & realised that there was quite a bit of gluten in the filling that needed to be changed as well. Even with the changes that I made these turned out really well & I think they were just as good as the gluteny version.

This is the original recipe ingredients with my substitutions in red, the method can be found in the Where's the Beef post, but basically you just whack everything besides the last 3 ingredients in the food processor, roll in pastry & sprinkle sesame seeds on top then bake until golden brown - easy!

Vegan sausage rolls

125g pecans
~~stale bread to make ~1/2 cup breadcrumbs~~ 1/2 cup Orgran corn crispy crumbs
1 onion
300g silken tofu
~~1 cup rolled oats~~ 1 cup cooked quinoa
1 Massel beef-style stock cube
~~1 teaspoon garlic powder~~ Crushed garlic

~~3 tablespoons soy sauce~~ 3 tablespoons tamari
ground pepper, to taste
~~3-4 frozen puff pastry sheets~~ 3 Pastry Pantry GF pastry sheets
water ofor brushing pastry
sesame seeds

I have blogged about these previously here & some of the other lovely Melbourne bloggers have blogged about them here, here & here.

Baked treats from my mum

2010-06-25T19:47:00.000+10:00

Last Saturday I gave birth to my daughter Holly, she is absolutely amazing & life with her is fantastic. So far I am coping pretty well with the broken sleep but have had a lot of help - Greg has been home so has been cleaning & organising meals & my mum brought over a care package of baked treats for us & for when we have visitors.

From the Joy of Vegan Baking she made pineapple walnut bars & banana chocolate chip muffins - yum.

And just because she is super adorable, this is Holly (everytime I look at that wrap she is in I think of Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe)

Lemon, lentil & spinach soup

2010-06-18T15:57:00.001+10:00

I bought a bunch of spinach at the market last weekend & decided that I wanted to make some sort of potato & spinach soup with it. I came across this recipe & had a couple of lemons to use up so I thought it would be perfect. Generally I don't like this style of soup, I usually only like pureed soups or chunky soups that have a tomatoey base but this did have a really nice flavour from the lemon.

The recipe is from taste.com.au & I followed it exactly except that I didn't add the lemon zest when serving.

Ingredients (serves 6)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 1/2 cups dried brown lentils
3 potatoes, peeled, diced
2 litres vegetable stock
1 bunch English spinach, leaves removed, washed, chopped
2 lemons, rind finely grated, juiced

Method

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until soft. Add lentils, potatoes and stock. Bring to the boil. Use a slotted spoon to skim any residue from surface of soup.
Reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer, covered, for 25 minutes or until lentils are tender. Remove from heat. Add spinach, 1/2 cup of lemon juice, and salt and pepper. Stir until well combined. Ladle into bowls. Top with lemon rind. Serve with bread.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

2010-06-17T19:02:00.000+10:00

I made a pineapple upside down cake using a recipe from Vegweb. It was super quick, it literally took under 10 minutes from starting it to putting it in the oven, but I had some issues with the baking. I took it out of the oven after 25 minutes when it looked perfectly golden brown, but when I inverted it on a plate it was completely uncooked inside so it went back in the oven for probably about another 20 or so minutes. When I then read through the comments on the recipe it seems like a few other people had the same issue, not sure why?

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 cup sugar (I would only use half a cup next time because it is a very sweet cake)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup pineapple juice/water (see below)
1/3 cup oil (I used canola oil)
1 tablespoon white vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar)
1 can pineapple slices in unsweetened pineapple juice
1/4 cup UNPACKED brown sugar (I would leave this out next time as it didn't caramelise like I thought it would so seemed a bit unneccesary)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
Mix flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
Pour juice off can of pineapple into 1 cup measuring cup--it should be about 3/4 cup juice. Add water to make 1 cup. In a separate bowl, combine oil, vinegar and juice.
Place pineapple slices into the bottom of a 12 inch spring form pan. Sprinkle with brown sugar.
Quickly mix wet ingredients into dry, stirring quickly to combine ingredients well and get out the big lumps. Pour into pan on top of the pineapple/brown sugar mix.
Bake for 25-35 minutes or until golden on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let cool and loosen sides of cake from pan. Remove side ring and place serving plate on top. Flip cake over onto serving plate and remove pan bottom.

Birthday Cake

2010-06-09T20:59:00.002+10:00

Greg bought me a birthday cake from The Organic Food & Wine Deli for my birthday this week. It is an orange & olive oil cake & is really dense & delicious. The cake itself isn't super orange-y but the icing is quite citrusy.

The Organic Food & Wine Deli

28 Degraves Street

Melbourne

03 9654 5157

East Brunswick Club - Weekend Breakfast

2010-06-06T21:30:00.000+10:00

I caught up with a friend for dinner at East Brunswick Club recently & was a little bit excited to see that they are now doing breakfast from 12-4 on weekends. For the vegan options they have The Vegan Basic ($10) which is sourdough toast with facon & scrambled tofu, the Vegan Big Breakfast ($15) which is sourdough toast, mushrooms, roasted tomato, spinach, scrambled tofu, facon, fauxsage & a hash brown. They also have 3 different sorts of pancakes which are veganisable -

with maple syrup & ice cream
with maple syrup, bacon & ice cream
the 'Elvis' which I think consisted of something along the lines of peanut butter, banana, bacon, maple syrup & ice cream

I got the Vegan Basic & Greg got the Vegan Big Breakfast. The scrambled tofu was made with silken tofu so it was much more what I remember the texture of scrambled eggs to be like than any other scrambled tofu I have tried before. I am not sure about this, I liked it but didn't love it & was not a big fan of the toast that they use. Greg, however, really enjoyed his breakfast & I tried his hash brown which was really good.
I am interested in going back & trying the pancakes because they did look pretty good.

East Brunswick Club

280 Lygon Street

East Brunswick

03 9388 9794

Mexican Soup

2010-06-03T17:06:00.001+10:00

I made this soup one night this week which in my head was much better than the outcome. It was ok & it was a good warming winter meal but not sure if I would make it again although I do like the idea of it. Maybe if I roasted some tomatoes & blended them up to use as the base it would have been better.

Mexican Soup

1 tin diced tomatoes
1 tin kidney beans
1 tsp olive oil
1 onion diced
800 mls water
3 tsps vegetable stock
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp ground cumin

Heat olive oil in a big saucepan/stockpot & add onion. Cook, stirring until cooked translucent & cooked through.
Add the chilli flakes & cumin, stirring for about 30 seconds
Add the tomatoes,stock powder & kidney beans
Simmer for around 30 minutes & allow to reduce
Add salt & pepper to taste

I topped this with a simple salsa of diced avocado, corn kernels, lime juice & salt & pepper & served with some cheesey quesadillas.

Coconut & Strawberry Sandwiches

2010-06-02T18:02:00.002+10:00

I made the Coconut & Raspberry Sandwiches from the Vegan Indulgence cookbook a couple of weeks ago. I didn't have raspberry jam so subbed strawberry & also made some with marmalade. These are quite nice, the biscuit dough is a lot easier to work with than the melting moment dough so they were easier to shape & made lots (I think I got 19) but weren't so shortbready. I am a big fan of these sort of sandwiched biscuits so will probably make these again.

Biscuit
1/2 cup vegan margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup soy milk + 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup custard powder
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 cup shredded coconut

Filling
1/2 cup vegan margarine
1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted
3/4 cup shredded coconut
Raspberry jam (about 1/2 a jar) - I made some with strawberry & some with marmalade

Preheat oven to 160˚C/320˚F/Gas Mark 3. Line two biscuit trays with baking paper.

Biscuit
In a large bowl, beat margarine and sugar together until light and creamy. Carefully beat in vanilla soy milk.
In another bowl, sift flour and custard powder together. Fold into the margarine mixture until well combined.
Add coconut and mix through well. The mixture should be soft and slightly sticky, but you should be able to handle it without too much sticking to your hands.
Use two dessertspoons to form ovals of dough, about 5cm long. Place these on the baking tray, spaced out by about 5cm. Carefully flatten the ovals with the back of a flour-covered spoon to form a 1 cm thick slightly oval biscuit.
Bake for 30 minutes, until the biscuits begin to colour on their bases and are firm to the touch. Leave on the tray for another 10 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.

Filling
Beat margarine and icing sugar together until creamy and light. Fold in coconut until well combined. Chill in the fridge until the biscuits are cooled.

Putting it all together
Match up the biscuits to the most even pairs. Spread 1/2 teaspoon of coconut filling on all of the biscuits. Place 1/2 teaspoon of jam in the centre of the icing mixture on half of the biscuits. Carefully sandwich pairs together, using the edges of the coconut icing to join them together.
Keep in the fridge. These will keep for about a week.

Vegan Yum Yum Mac & Cheeze

2010-05-31T16:17:00.000+10:00

So delicious! When I was cooking the cheesey sauce I really didn't think that it was going to be so good but after it is baked with the pasta it tastes so buttery & smooth & is really good. I had truckloads of sauce leftover so made a potato bake the next night which I actually didn't really enjoy but then I made another Mac & Cheeze & the sauce was amazing again so the sauce with pasta = win & the sauce with potatoes = fail. I didn't use macaroni because I never have it but used some pasta shells & served with steamed veg, yum.
There are a couple of Mac & Cheeze recipes on the VYY website but I used the one from the book which I am too lazy to type up, if you have the book then definitely make this.

Bakery Style Berry Muffins

2010-05-30T13:57:00.000+10:00

We have had a string of bad luck in our household recently so I haven't been online so much & am a bit behind with blog pots & haven't been doing cooking a whole lot of inspiring food anyway.
But, I have still been doing some baking & this week I made mini berry muffins using the recipe for Bakery Style Berry Muffins from Vegan Brunch. These are really good, especially right out of the oven when they are crunchy on top. For some reason my muffins always go soft when stored which I don't like so much.

By far the worst thing that has happened in our household in the last week is that it looks like one of our cats is really, really sick. He has gone from a seemingly perfectly healthy cat to looking like he will only be with us for a few more months. Make sure you give your furry friends lots of cuddles & enjoy them while you can.

Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes

2010-05-14T16:17:00.001+10:00

I am pretty sure that it is the law that you have to eat cake on your birthday so for Greg's birthday I decided to make chocolate mousse cupcakes. I was going to make a whole chocolate mousse cake & cover it with ganache but was concerned about how we would go eating an entire cake so thought that cupcakes would be more manageable.

I made the chocolate cake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking which is ridiculously easy & also made the chocolate mousse recipe from the same book. I thought the mousse tasted a bit tofu-y to start with but added a bit of maple syrup & once it chilled for awhile didn't taste like tofu at all. I then just cut the tops off the cupcakes & scooped a little hole into each cake which I filled with mousse. The mousse didn't set as well as I had hoped so it came out the sides a bit once I put the tops back on. But after sitting the cakes in the fridge for a couple of hours the mousse set more. I had originally planned to make a ganache to cover each cake with, but had heaps of mousse left over so served the cakes topped with a dollop of mousse. These ended up being delicious, but verrrry rich.

Va Bene Pizzeria & Costco

2010-05-12T19:40:00.000+10:00

One of my friends is currently living at the Docklands so today we met up for some Costco shopping & lunch. I had never been to Costco before & was pretty excited about it. I didn't buy too much today but I did buy a bulk pack of lint rollers (I was wearing black jeans & was having cat hair issues) & a big bag of dried blueberries. Any suggestions of what I can bake the blueberries into?

We went for lunch at Va Bene Pizzeria which is his favourite local place. The wait staff were incredibly friendly & were happy to accommodate me with vegan eats offering me a few different pasta & pizza options. No pics because I forgot my camera, but I had the Pepperoncini pizza which had roasted capsicum, caramelised onion & parsley which was delicious. It was not cheap at $19 but there aren't a whole lot of cheap eating options over at Docklands so if you are going to pay a bit for lunch it is nice to get some good service with it.

Va Bene Pizzeria

T10 Shed 9, Central Pier

161 Harbour Esplanade

Docklands Victoria 3008

03 8623 9690

www.vabenepizzeria.com

Veganomicon Spicy Peanut & Eggplant Soup

2010-05-11T19:35:00.000+10:00

I seem to have been making lots of recipes from Veganomicon lately & with a big eggplant needing to be used up & not too many other vegies I decided to make the Spicy Peanut & Eggplant Soup.

This is quite easy & I love any recipe where you end up with meltingly soft eggplant because it is about my favourite thing ever. It is pretty rich though because of the peanut butter but that isn't always such a bad thing! I left out the spring onions, green beans & chilli because I didn't have any & I didn't peel the eggplant because I thought it would be unnecessary. I was also planning on making naan to have with it (which would have gone really well) but ended up having a lazy day so just served some warmed, nuttelexed turkish bread alongside it.

A good, easy recipe for a yummy, rich soup.

Soulfood Cafe

2010-05-10T17:52:00.000+10:00

There has been a bit of debate amongst my friends as to whether I should celebrate Mother's Day this year or not. Given that I am 8 months pregnant I say yes, luckily Greg agreed (after some convincing) & bought me a present & also took me out to breakfast to anywhere of my choice the day after as he had an RDO. I decided to go to Soulfood as we don't often get to go there since he works Monday to Saturday & they don't open on Sundays.

We both had the Monster Vegan breakfast, as also blogged about by Steph here. It costs $15.80 & consists of 2 pieces multigrain sourdough toast, scrambled tofu, mushrooms, tomato, spinach, hash browns & tomato kusundi. This is a massive breakfast! I couldn't finish mine & still had to come home & have a nap afterwards, didn't have lunch & am still not very hungry for dinner. I love the scrambled tofu here but the serving size is verrrrrry generous & because the tofu is very full flavoured it can get a little bit too much.. I also love the mushrooms here, I have a bit of an aversion to mushrooms at the moment but really enjoyed these. I didn't love the hash browns (although Greg did), I just found them a bit bland although they were nice & crunchy. This breakfast used to come with rice cake things which I loved & preferred to the hash browns. And, although I have taken it off my plate in the photo, you do get a little dish of nuttelex for your toast.

All in all it is a good value & very tasty breakfast, but don't plan on eating again for awhile afterwards..

Soulfood Cafe
273 Smith Street
Fitzroy VIC 3065
www.soulfoodcafe.com.au

Slower Cooker Curry

2010-05-08T07:28:00.000+10:00

It has been a very long time since I used my slow cooker, in fact the last time I used it was August 2008 when I cooked my last omni meal. I remember that I made a beef red curry in it & ate it & felt so sick afterwards that I went vegan the next day, I had been planning on going vegan at some stage but thought that I might ease my way into it but this meal pushed me over the edge & I went vegan straight away.

So, somewhat ironically when I decided to dust off the slow cooker again I chose to make a mock beef red curry with some 'beef' chunks that I had bought at Minh Phat. This was yum. Even though I am not working at the moment & it is nice to have food prepared of an evening & not have to do to much besides cook some rice in the rice cooker (which Greg did anyway so all I had to do was serve).

My very simple & not very authentic curry recipe

2 tbsp red curry paste ( I bought mine from Aldi)
Can light coconut milk
Mock beef chunks
Cauliflower florets
Green beans topped & tailed
Peeled potatoes cut into chunks
Half a huge eggplant diced
1 onion sliced

Put it all in the slow cooker & cook for around 7 hours & then serve over rice - easy!

Next time I make it I won't use cauliflower though because it went really mushy, all the other vegies came out beautifully though, especially the eggplant so I am now looking at other eggplant slow cooker recipes.

Chocolate Melting Moments

2010-05-07T15:41:00.000+10:00

So I am now on maternity leave which is why I actually have free time for the first time in a long time & can blog regularly. The best things about maternity leave (besides the whole not working thing) are being able to catch up with people on weekdays who don't work regular Monday to Friday hours and having time to cook more. My mum is a high school teacher but only works 3 days a week so she came over recently for afternoon tea so I baked the chocolate melting moment biscuits from the book 'Vegan Indulgence'. The biscuit dough is very, very dry to the point that I really wanted to add some soy milk but didn't and I had some trouble rolling them so they ended up huge! The recipe says that it makes 20 sandwiched biscuits, I made 10 enormous biscuits. They are very yummy though but disappeared way too fast given how few I made.

Pumpkin Soup with Savoury Muffins

2010-05-06T08:04:00.001+10:00

Now that the weather is getting cooler we have been eating lots of soup which I love. One of the regular soups I make is a very easy & delicious pumpkin & chickpea soup. You must add the fennel seeds, they add heaps of flavour & make the soup so much more delicious!

1 onion diced
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 jap pumpkin chopped into big chunks
1 tsp fennel seeds
Vegetable stock
1 can chickpeas drained & rinsed

Heat olive oil in a big saucepan or stockpot & add onion & garlic & cook until onion is soft.
Add pumpkin, fennel seeds & vegetable stock to cover everything (I like my soup really thick)
Cook until pumpkin is very soft
Blend & add chickpeas & season to taste

I decided to make some savoury muffins to eat with the soup which were also really good.

2 cups self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
1 small zucchini, grated
1 small carrot, grated
2 vegie sausages
1 cup grated cheezly
egg replacer equivalent to 2 eggs
3/4 cup soy milk
75ml canola oil

Preheat oven to 200°C. Lightly grease a muffin pan or fill holes with muffin liners if you are so inclined.

Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Place zucchini and carrot in a large sheet of paper towel. Squeeze out excess moisture. Add vegetables, sausage and 1/2 cup cheese to flour. Stir to combine.
Whisk egg replacer mix, milk and butter in a jug. Add to dry ingredients. Using a large metal spoon, stir until just combined. Two-thirds fill muffin holes with mixture. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Stand for 5 minutes in pan. Turn onto a wire rack to cool.

Veganomicon Seitan Cutlets

2010-05-05T08:08:00.000+10:00

I recently made the seitan cutlets from Veganomican for the first time. Normally if I make seitan I use a recipe where you simmer them for about an hour then leave them to cool in the cooking liquid for about another hour so it is quite a long process. This recipe us a lot quicker & I found them really tasty. I am a big fan of the chickpea cutlets & these are quite similar so I will definitely make them again.

The recipe made six cutlets so we had them three different ways. I make sandwiches for Greg to take to work everyday so two went into sandwiches for him.

I felt like eating roast potatoes so with two other cutlets we had them pan fried with roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli, steamed beans & VWAV punk rock chickpea gravy. It was not so pretty, but we both really enjoyed this, a perfect cold weather meal!

For the last two cutlets I decided to make another recipe from Veganomicon which was the 'Seitan Piccata wtih Olives & Green Beans'. I pretty much completely followed the recipe except it calls for shallots which I didn't have so I used thinly sliced red onion instead. This meal was another winner - easy to make & really tasty.

Vegan Brunch Toasted Coconut & Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins

2010-05-04T06:43:00.001+10:00

These are actually the Toasted Coconut and Mango Muffins, but I didn't have any dried mango so I subbed some chocolate chips. We bought a mini muffin tray for the cupcake kebabs & have been using it all the time since, I didn't make a whole lot of muffins or cupcakes beforehand because they are often too big but the mini muffin pan makes them perfect size for eating with a cup of tea & it makes heaps so you can't really go wrong!

This recipe is super easy & the toasted coconut flavour is delicious, they also feel healthier than a normal muffin with the addition of wholemeal flour & they don't have huge amounts of sugar in them.

Mediterranean Olive Bread

2010-05-03T10:52:00.000+10:00

Whenever I make soup I like to make bread to go alongside it so when I recently made a delicious tomatoey vegetable & sausage soup I decided to also make Mediterranean olive bread from The Joy of Vegan Baking. This bread is so, so good! It is essentially savoury cake with rosemary, olives, sundried tomatoes & olives all through it. It doesn't have yeast in it so is really quick & easy too for a weeknight meal. Completely delicious & goes exceptionally well with soup.

The soup that I make is a very easy soup & a good way of using up lots of vegies - I chop up whatever vegies I have on hand & cook in a little bit of olive oil & add a tin of tomato soup & massel chicken stock until I have about 4 serves worth & this time I had some vegie sausages in the freezer so I chopped up some of them & added them as well.

Shepherds Pie

2010-05-02T10:29:00.000+10:00

I usually do all the cooking & Greg does all the cleaning which is really the ideal situation for me, but he recently had a week off so did some cooking. He made a shepherds pie one night which he was very proud of & it was really tasty, it was loosely based on this recipe.
As much as I like cooking it is really nice to come home & not have to think about dinner.

Cupcake kebabs

2010-04-28T19:19:00.003+10:00

When Greg & I decided to host a potluck (blogged about by Kristy here), he decided that we should make cupcake kebabs which I thought was the best idea ever! I decided to make them completely gluten free & thread cupcakes, mini donuts, biscuits & lollies on the skewers. I had a disaster with the first lot of cupcakes I made, so ended up making some mini choc chip muffins instead using this recipe:

Ingredients

340 grams self raising gluten free flour
1 pinch salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
120 grams caster sugar
120 grams nuttelex
1/2 cup applesauce
1 tablespoon white vinegar
soy milk, to mix
vegan chocolate chips - about 3/4 cup

Method

Rub the dry ingredients in with the nuttelex.
Add the wet ingredients, adding a little milk at a time to get a soft dropping consistency.
Beat the mixture well to combine & stir through the chocolate chips.
Add paper liners to the muffin tin and fill with the mixture.
Bake at about 190 degrees Celsius until cooked through & brown (about 10-15 minutes for the mini muffins)

I then made mini donuts using my donut maker, yes I have a donut maker which I have now used a total of two times. I used this recipe from the Sunbeam website which worked really well:

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups gluten-free plain flour
½ cup caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
125g butter, melted
¾ cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten (I used egg replacer)

Method

1. Preheat Doughnut machine. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre. Whisk in the butter, milk and egg until mixture forms a smooth batter. Transfer to a jug.
2. Spray machine with cooking oil. Pour batter into preheated doughnut rings. Close lid and cook for 6 minutes or until doughnuts are golden and cooked. Use a non-stick spatula to transfer doughnuts to a wire rack. Repeat with remaining batter to make 10 doughnuts in total.

I then added halved Leda choculence biscuits & topped each skewer with Organic by Nature Cheery Bear lollies (these lollies are so good!!) I think my gluten free baking still needs A LOT of work but the kebabs turned out ok & looked very impressive!!

Fry's Chicken Strips

2010-04-18T18:29:00.000+10:00

Doing my grocery shopping recently I noticed Fry's chicken strips which I believe are a new product so decided to give them a go.

The first meal I made with them was Bibimbap which I made during a week of huge spicy food cravings - I loved this meal! The chicken strips however, I had marinated for a couple of hours in soy sauce, garlic & ginger & they ended up almost inedibly salty. Everything else was great though - marinated mushrooms, seaweed salad, kim chi & cucumber salad.

The next meal I made with them was a simple salad with a tahini dressing & I actually really liked them in this. I wouldn't buy them all the time but they are quite tasty & a nice addition to salads.

Easter treats

2010-04-11T17:38:00.000+10:00

As I was seeing my family for Easter lunch I decided to make them some Easter treats. I made the super easy & delicious cookies & cream truffles from Fat Feminist Foodie, but covered them in Sweet William milk chocolate & piped white chocolate crosses on them so they kinda looked like hot cross buns. I also made Sugar Cookies from 'The Joy of Vegan Baking' which I cut into Easter shaped & badly piped some icing on. These biscuits were nice but they became super sweet with the icing.

Easter pre-lunch

2010-04-09T21:26:00.000+10:00

Easter Saturday was spent having a family lunch at my mum's place. I decided to take some pre-lunch noms since she was doing the whole big lunch herself. I bought divine marinated olives from the Vic Market & decided to make some bread & dips. I am sure that she just thought I would go to the supermarket & buy some crackers & dips & did not intend for me to get up at on Saturday morning & start baking bread at 7am but I tend to go all out if I am given a task. My mum bought herself 'The Joy of Vegan Baking' a while ago & is obsessed with it & everything she has made from it has been amazing so I finally got myself a copy & made the focaccia from it. This was hands down the best focaccia I have ever eaten! I have made focaccia a few times & have eaten plenty of it & this was divine - tasty, not dry, not too yeasty tasting, perfect! There is lots of resting time involved but very little actual work.

The dips I made to go with the bread were muhummara, as blogged about by Where's the Beef & sweet chilli hommus. I make up hommus as I go by blending up chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, lemon juice & salt & pepper & with this one I stirred through some sweet chilli sauce when it was done.

Baking for the Aduki Vegan Bake Off

2010-04-05T08:57:00.000+10:00

Last weekend was the Aduki Vegan Bake Off, I had no idea what to make & on the day before decided to make White Chocolate & Cherry Blondies to enter into the slice category & Brownie Bite Cookies to enter into the biscuit category. I make both on the Saturday morning & was not super happy with either, they were fine, but not winners.

I had some leftover blondies at home & were so much better the next day, oh well - we enjoyed them! They are based on a recipe on taste.com.au but I did change it a bit, so my recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

100g nuttelex, chopped
180g Sweet William white chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup caster sugar
Egg replacer made up to the equivalent of 2 eggs
3/4 cup self-raising flour, sifted
3/4 cup plain flour, sifted
1 cup (175g) pitted cherries (I used canned morello cherries)

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Grease an 18cm x 28cm (base) rectangular slice pan. Line base and sides with baking paper, allowing a 2cm overhang on all sides. Melt nuttelex and chocolate in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Remove from heat. Set aside for 5 minutes to cool.
Add sugar, made up egg replacer and flours to pan. Stir to combine. Spread into prepared pan. Press cherries into mixture. Bake for 30 minutes or until edges are firm and top golden. Cool in pan. Serve.

I wanted to make a really decadent biscuit so thought that the brownie bite cookies would be perfect - they are biscuits with chunks of brownie in them - genius!! When these came out of the oven I thought that they were a disaster because they looked horrible, too big & they looked really dry, but they were deceptively delicious.

I used almost the exact recipe from Have Cake, Will Travel (that blog is amazing) but mine didn't look anywhere near as good as hers.

Ingredients

For the brownies:

1/3 cup (75 g) nondairy butter
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (120 g) brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons (30 g) vanilla soy or other nondairy yogurt
3/4 cup (90 g) light spelt or (94 g) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (20 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

For the cookies:

1/4 cup (180 ml) canola oil
1 cup caster sugar
2 tablespoons (30 ml) pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (90 ml) plain soy or other nondairy milk
3 cups (360 g) whole wheat pastry flour (I used plain white flour)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Method

To make the brownies: Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C, or gas mark 4). Lightly coat an 8-inch (20-cm) square baking pan with non-stick cooking spray.
With an electric mixer, cream butter and Sucanat until light and fluffy.
Stir in vanilla and yogurt.
Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt on top of the wet ingredients.
Stir dry ingredients into wet.
Place and level batter into prepared loaf pan.
Bake for 10 minutes, or until the sides of the brownie start to pull away from the pan.
Let cool in pan, on top of a wire rack, and chill before slicing. Cut into medium to large chunks. Set aside.
To make the cookies: Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C, or gas mark 4). Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats, such as Silpat.
In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, vanilla, salt, and milk until combined.
Sift flour and baking powder on top of the wet ingredients.
Stir dry ingredients into wet.
Fold in brownie chunks, or use your hands to gently incorporate them.
Divide into 12 (about 1/4 cup each) portions of dough.
Flatten onto prepared cookie sheets: the cookies won’t spread much while baking, but leave 1 inch (2.5 cm) in between anyway.
Bake for 16 minutes. Wait a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Yield: 12 cookies

French toast

2010-03-24T19:25:00.000+11:00

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

2010-03-17T21:11:00.000+11:00

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

2010-03-16T21:16:00.001+11:00

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

Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Heat the oil in an ovenproof dish (that has a lid) on the stovetop over medium-low heat.
Add the onion, eggplant and garlic and cook, stirring until soft. Add the olives & semi dried tomatoes.
Add the rice and stir.
Add the passata, bring to the boil then add the hot stock.
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.
Top with artichokes & rocket.

Bowl of Soul

2010-03-06T16:26:00.001+11:00

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

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

2010-03-02T17:36:00.000+11:00

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

Gluten free carrot cupcakes for a gluten free picnic

2010-02-28T17:54:00.000+11:00

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

Gluten free sponge cake - CNYE potluck

2010-02-15T18:04:00.000+11:00

When I was invited to Steph's place for a CNYE potluck I immediately panicked because I don't really make much in the way of Chinese food. I decided that for my dessert I would make mango pudding. My best friend's sister owns a Chinese restaurant & when I used to go there when I was omni she would always give me delicious mango pudding so I got her recipe & gave it a go. The first time I made it I used gelatine free mango jelly in it & it was absolutely disgusting. So I gave it another go using agar agar & while it was better it still wasn't super tasty.

Then I threw a bit of a tantrum (because none of my savoury food was working either) & decided that I would just make a cake. In a nod to CNY, I decided to include lychees so I made a sponge filled with lychees, strawberries & soyatoo. I wanted all my food to be gluten free so everyone could eat it & found a recipe from a blog called Cooking with Dia which looked really easy & didn't have 4 different types of gluten free flour. This recipe is super easy & turned out really well - my only problem was that it didn't make nearly enough to make 2 cakes & I actually had to make a second cake for the other layer.

115gm vegan spread (I used nuttelex)
115gm gluten free self raising flour (I used the orgran brand)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 egg replacers (read back of box for instructions)
115 gm unrefined caster sugar
icing sugar

Cream the vegan spread, extract and caster sugar together.
Slowly add in the egg replacers and mix in with the vegan spread and sugar.
Meanwhile sift the flour twice and slowly fold into the mixture.
Stir together until nice and creamy.
Split the batter evenly between to 6″ sandwich tins.
Bake at 180°C (356°F) for 20 minutes.
Turn out on cooling rack.

I actually broke the top layer when I was taking it out of the tin which is why there is a massive crack in the top of the cake - oops!

Grigons & Orr

2010-02-06T18:43:00.002+11:00

My best friend has just moved back from a 6 year stint in Perth & we used to always do breakfast together. I don't often go out for breakfast, but now that he is back I think it will become a much more regular thing. I had a couple of places that I wanted to check out for brekky & one was Grigons & Orr, especially after reading Steph's review. I have been wanting to go there for ages & it is only an 8 minute walk from my work so can definitely see myself going there fairly regularly from now on because my breakfast was delicious!

I had the pan fried tofu with mushrooms & spinach. I have no idea what spices the tofu was coated in but it was delicious!! It was also not a super heavy breakfast which I liked. I also ordered a nectarine iced tea which was filled with diced fresh nectarine & mint & was also really good. I think they do all day breakfasts so that sounds perfect to me for a workday lunch!

Grigons & Orr
Cnr Chetwynd & Queensberry Streets
North Melbourne

The Press Club II

2010-01-31T11:16:00.002+11:00

Last night Greg & I went to The Press Club for a belated anniversary date. We decided to go there since I had enjoyed the lunch that I had there so much & Greg was keen to go after hearing me raving about it. Since we were having an expensive meal anyway we decided to go for the degustation menu. I love a good degustation menu, I think because I decide what we eat every night I love that someone just brings me lots of food & I don't have to think about what I want to eat.

To start with, we were given complimentary pickled vegetables, Dench olive bread & Dench sourdough bread (not pictured). The olive bread is so good & the breads were served with kalamata olive oil & organic black salt. Greg says that I always use too much salt but he even loved the black salt.

Our first course was 3 salads, they were a dried tomato salad, a skewer with watermelon & roasted capsicum & olive bread salad - all deliciousness. The dried tomato salad was particularly good - it was really intensely flavoured & I loved it. Although at this point Greg was concerned that he was going to be hungry which he really should not have been worried about. It is a terrible photo, but you get the general idea.

Next course was supposed to be "fish and chips", they normally serve chips with taramasalata, but for us they did chips & hommous with olive oil couscous. The olive oil couscous is olive oil that has been frozen in liquid nitrogen so it looks super impressive when it is served up & also looks like couscous, but melts into delicious liquid olive oil on the hommous. Our lovely waitress instructed us to dip the chips into hommous & eat which we did & it was really, really good. The chips were quite possibly the best chips ever.

Next course was steamed Zucchini flowers, watermelon, pickled watermelon rind and daikon.

Next up was pasta with lemon, olive oil & fresh herbs with shaved Tasmanian truffles - simple & ridiculously good, although by this stage I was getting pretty full!

Then came out baby vegetables with celery gel, crumbled carrot cake & sunflower seeds. Again it was another course of deliciousness. I am not sure but I think there are purple carrots in there which were my favourite.

Then came dessert & I was really, really full but could not say no when presented with vanilla rice pudding with candied walnuts - I would like to eat this every day it was so good!

At this stage I was really hoping that the meal was over because I had eaten way too much, but we were then presented with our final course - poached pear with orange gel & pistachio praline with blackberry sorbet on crumbled pistachios. The blackberry sorbet was amazing!! I am not a huge fan of sorbets but this was incredible!

It is certainly not a cheap meal at $125 each, but we were there for 3 hours, had amazing food with impeccable presentation & fantastic service - I think it is great for a special occassion. And I am still full this morning!

Roast Capsicum Soup

2010-01-30T16:14:00.000+11:00

We recently had a couple of cold days which made me think about making soup for dinner as soup is only something that I want to eat when it is really cold. So when Animals Australia posted some Australia Day receipes on their website, I decided to make roasted capsicum soup - perfect since I felt like soup & roasted capsicum is one of my favourite foods. In true Melbourne style though, the weather had completely changed from a cold, grey morning to a sunny evening on the day that I made this, but it was still good!

You Will Need:

4 red capsicums
Olive oil for cooking
6 tomatoes, halved
1 onion, peeled and quartered
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 red chilli
250–500 ml (1–2 cups) vegetable stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 180°C.
Rub capsicums with oil. Place in a baking tray and roast until skins blister, approx 30 minutes.
Put tomatoes, onion, chilli and garlic in another baking tray, toss with oil, salt and pepper and roast at the same temperature until soft, about 30 minutes.
Remove and discard seeds and skins from tomatoes and capsicum.
Puree the tomato, capsicum, onion, garlic and chilli with cooking juices. Pass through a sieve.
Place puree into a saucepan and add enough stock to bring soup to a good consistency.
Bring soup to the boil. Check seasoning.
Ladle soup into bowls and serve.

I didn't sieve the soup & it was fine, I also added in a tin of brown lentils right at the end to make it more of a substantial meal. I really liked this soup & plan on making it again when the cold weather really hits.

Pies

2010-01-26T21:30:00.006+11:00

We are pretty fond of pies in my household, particularly Greg - although strangely he does not really like Funky Pies whereas I really like them. Recently I was at Radical Grocery at around lunchtime & decided to get myself a Funky Pie, I had the Chic n Cheezy (I think that is what it is called as it isn't on the website). It is filled with a thick cheesy sauce with 'chickeny' soy protein chunks & broccoli - delicious!!!

Greg is more of a fan of La Panella mushroom pies & we had some for dinner recently with a salad with a delicious dressing made from roasted capsicum & mayo. La Panella pies are super cheap & easy when you don't really want to cook.

Dumplings

2010-01-26T21:15:00.004+11:00

I love dumplings, these were filled with spinach, shitake mushrooms, water chestnuts & a bit of ginger & were delicious. I served them on top of a simple stir fry of rice noodles, red capsicum & carrot with mint & dark soy sauce tossed through it.

Eat Pizza

2010-01-22T21:05:00.005+11:00

I had read about Eat Pizza ages ago in a number of blogs when a pizza party had been held & had filed it away in my mind fr if I happened to ever be in Maribyrnong & needing a meal. Then I discovered recently that there is an Eat Pizza in Glenroy - yay for vegan pizza not too far from my neighbourhood!! So on Wednesday night we had an ultrasound (I am having a baby girl!) & were driving home late-ish when we decided to give Eat Pizza ago - best decision ever!!!!

It is not cheap, we got a large Vegie Delight pizza which had big chunks of eggplant, roasted capsicum, roasted pumpkin & semi dried tomato ($15) with vegan cheese ($3) & vegan salami ($3). When we ordered we thought that $21 it was a bit expensive but we were hungry & wanted pizza, so went with it. It was so, so good!! They are surprisingly generous with the cheezly & it was cheezy & delicious!! I don't think that I ever need to make pizza again.

Eat Pizza
1/749 Pascoe Vale Road
Glenroy
9304 4040

Veggie Pies

2010-01-19T18:47:00.004+11:00

When Greg's mum was staying with us over Christmas I was trying to make very omni friendly food every day for her. She is very much a meat & 3 veg eater so we didn't want to give her tofu or lentils or anything that she would think was weird hippy food. I also made lots of cake to try to win her over! One of the meals I made which I will definitely make again was veggie pies from Rose's blog. I only had one sheet of puff pustry so I made little pies in a muffin tray. These were really delicious, I am not completely sold on polenta but I really liked it in this. The leftover filling was also really nice just on its own with tomato chutney.

Wood Spoon Kitchen

2010-01-13T19:23:00.008+11:00

After reading about Wood Spoon Kitchen in the 2009 wrap ups from both Toby & Lisa I decided that I really wanted to go there so when I planned to go out to dinner with 2 of my favourite people last night - Wood Spoon Kitchen it was. There was a bit of confusion to start with because my friend Anthony beat Greg & I there & said that there was no booking & we would have to sit with other people, but then I found him sitting in Wabi Sabi. Once we got to Wood Spoon Kitchen they had my booking & we had a table to ourselves.

For entree we shared edamame which I love

And Agedashi Tofu - yum!!

For main I had Dengaku Don which was big chunks of super soft & delicious eggplant with other vegies & chunks of tofu in a miso-y sauce on rice - delicious, I absolutely love eggplant like this.

Greg had the vego miso soup with noodles which he liked but didn't love.

And my friend Anthony is omni so he ate something chicken-y which he liked.

I decided to get dessert, mostly because there was a vegan dessert on the menu. I ordered the Pumpkin Dango in Coconut Milk. I wasn't expecting much but this was my highlight, I absolutely loved it. It was little balls of super smooth pumpkin (like gnocchi) in a really sweet & creamy coconut milk topped with red beans - it was really, really tasty.

It is a really nice little restaurant, fairly quiet so you can chat easily & really friendly but unobtrusive service, we were there for a few hours & it was really relaxed & we never felt rushed.

Wood Spoon Kitchen
88 Smith Street
Collingwood