Aunty Menas (again) - Wellington - New Zealand

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

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

Bo De Trai

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

Vegan MoFo - Noodle Soup

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

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

Some things I have cooked during my absence

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

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

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.

Lemon, lentil & spinach soup

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
   
   
   

Mexican Soup

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.

Veganomicon Spicy Peanut & Eggplant Soup

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.

Pumpkin Soup with Savoury Muffins

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.

Mediterranean Olive Bread

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.

Roast Capsicum Soup

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.

Laksa of fire

I love laksa & haven't made it since being vegan, but when I saw that you can now buy a soy version of evaporated milk I thought that it would be perfect for a healthy laksa meal. When I was at the supermarket it seemed that all the laksa pastes had shrimp in them so I bought a curry paste instead - a curry paste that I have never used before & it was apparently the hottest curry paste that I could have bought! This laksa would have been delicious but it was waaaaay too hot for me & I couldn't eat it. I will definitely make this again but will give it a go making my own curry paste.

Recipe

• Small onion finely chopped
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• Red curry paste (use as much as you want & not as much as I used!)
• 100 grams sliced mushrooms
• 320 gm pack of extra firm tofu sliced into thickish rectangles
  
• 1 1/2 tsp peanut oil
• 1 tin soy creamy cooking milk
• 1 tsp coconut essence
  
• Rice noodles
• Beansprouts

Cook rice noodles as per the packet directions
Heat 1/2 teaspoon peanut oil in a saucepan & fry onion & garlic
When the onion has softened add the curry paste & heat until aromatic
Add soy milk, coconut essence & mushrroms & cook on a low-medium heat until mushrooms are cooked through
Whilst this is cooking, heat 1 teaspoon of peanut oil in a frypan & fry tofu until lightly browned
Place noodles in the bottom of a bowl & top with a handful of beansprouts
Pour soup on top & top with tofu