Christmas Eats

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.

Va Bene Pizzeria & Costco

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

The excitement of fantastic vegan food when you least expect it

I think most vegans who attend events that are catered for often expect the worst. I organise & attend meetings in hotel conference rooms quite frequently. When organising the catering they always ask for dietary requirements & I always ask for a vegan meal. Sometimes my meals are fantastic (The Prince in St Kilda gave me incredible food) & sometimes I get nothing but fruit salad (I hate Hilton on the Park in East Melbourne) & sometimes my food isn't separated or labelled so others eat it or I don't even know what is suitable & there is no one around to ask (MCEC).

So, this week I am attending an Events Management course & they said that they cater morning tea, lunch & afternoon tea, they didn't ask for dietary requirements but I emailed them to let them know I was vegan, expected the worst & packed my bag with lots of snacks.

Yesterday was my first day & at morning tea I was a little bit excited to see soy milk with the tea & coffee & was happy that there were apricots available to eat in a bowl alongside the omni cake. I was eating some apricots when the caterer sought me out & said that he had prepared a special lunch for me & that he also had dried fruit & almonds available for me for morning tea if I wanted so I was pretty happy that they had gone to an effort. Then lunchtime came. At the food table there was a box, labelled vegan - filled with food for me!! There was heaps of food! I got delicious rice paper rolls filled with marinated asparagus, a big salad with kidney beans as well as apricots, strawberries, a muesli bar & a bag of biscuits labelled "afternoon tea". There was way too much food to eat but I was so excited that I took most of it home. So when lunch rolled around today I wondered if I would get the same again, but no & it was even better! Today I got a cup of salad of freekeh, pomegranate, tomato, baby spinach & almonds (aka the best salad I have ever eaten) as well as 2 big rice paper rolls, a small bread roll filled with tapenade & roasted vegies, a muesli bar & nectarines & strawberries.

It is such a small thing to make a little bit of effort but it makes such a difference. I am so used to feeling like I am a nuisance & getting boring salads with no imagination that to come across a caterer who is not only lovely but makes great food is a welcome change!

Weekend lunch - warm soba noodle salad

A couple of months ago I had a meeting at the Como in South Yarra & for my lunch they made me a soba noodle salad. It was so, so delicious & I have tried to recreate it a couple of times but just can't quite get it right. This, however, was really tasty & a great weekend lunch. I didn't measure the ingredients so the measurements are very approximate, I pretty much just keep tasting the dressing as I am going & when stop adding more when it is tasting good.

* Soba noodles (I used those organic ones that have 3 portions in a pack & I used 1.5 portions for the 2 of us)
* Broccoli florets from about 1/2 a broccoli
* 1 carrot sliced
* 1/2 red capsicum sliced
* Handful of baby spinach leaves
* Peanuts

Dressing
* 1 tsp garlic
* 1 tsp ginger
* 4 tbsp soy sauce
* 2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
* 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
* 1 tsp sesame oil
* 2 tsp sweet soy sauce

Mix all the dresing ingredients in a large bowl
Boil the noodles according to the directions on the packet (mine took 4 minutes)
Add the carrot the boiling water after 1 minute, then add the broccoli when there is only about a minute to go
Drain vegies & noodles
Add the drained noodles & vegies to the dressing, along with the raw red capsicum & mix thoroughly
Place the baby spinach in the bottom of 2 serving bowls
Top with the noodle mix
Top the noodle mix with chopped peanuts (I also topped with veg seaweed/sesame floss because I had some in the cupboard & it is really yummy)