Veganise This!

In my kitchen - May 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Thu, 02 May 2013 22:44:00 +0000

Over the past few months I've enjoyed reading "In my kitchen" posts written by my blogging buddies Johanna, Kari, Vaishali and Sandy and decided to join in too. This monthly event is hosted by Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial. This is what's been happening in my kitchen...

In my kitchen is a coffee machine and bean grinder. This is the third coffee machine we have owned which was purchased four or five years ago, the previous two models we had only lasted about two years before breaking down. I would have to say this is my favourite appliance as it's used every single day. One cup of coffee a day is all I usually need as long as it's a good quality strong one like this.

In my kitchen are lemons from our young tree which are being used up as quickly as they are ripening. The tree went through minor surgery over summer due to an attack of gall wasp, unfortunately some branches with many new buds had to be amputated and subsequently the yield has been less than I was hoping for. I haven't had the chance to make our favourite lemon slice yet and must rectify this soon.

In my kitchen are some animals on my window sill. The jade elephant was a souvenir we bought when travelling to Thailand (this particular pose with the trunk lifted in the air is supposed to be good luck). The glass horse sat on my mum’s dresser for years before she passed it onto me. The jade cat was a gift from my mother in law from an overseas trip and the wooden elephant belongs to the man although he can't recall where it came from.

In my kitchen are home made vegan cheeses and rejuvelac, a fermented liquid used for culturing the cheeses. Artisan Vegan Cheese by Miyoko Schinner was sitting on my cookbook shelf for several months before I finally had the time to delve into it. A lot of patience and self control is required for these recipes to work their magic. There isn't too much hands on work involved although some of the cheeses are best enjoyed after resting for 4 weeks! The cheeses in the photo are a cashew chevre and sharp cheddar with rejuvelac in the background. The sharp cheddar has been my favourite so far.

In my kitchen are delicious meals like these curries; a result of recipe testing for Leigh Drew. I've been enjoying testing for Leigh recently as I'm a fan of her cookbook Wrapped in Pastry and have also loved several recipes I've made from her blog. Leigh's exciting new cookbook will be released later this year!

In my kitchen are some substandard chocolate chip cookies. They have taught me a couple of lessons, to follow my own recipes closely and not to bake things late at night! My fellows had a hankering for something sweet last weekend so I hastily baked a batch of cookies for them. I was slack with measuring and didn't use enough flour which made the cookies way too soft. They also stuck together when I put them in a container as I was frustrated with my cooking blunder and didn't allow them to cool down enough before transferring them. Despite these woes, they still tasted great!

In my kitchen are olives soaking in a pot. They will remain here for the entire month with the water changed every second day! This is the first year our young trees have produced enough olives to bother making an effort with. There are more olives on the trees that are yet to ripen and I plan to experiment with some alternative preparation methods in due course.

In my kitchen are spicy Indian snacks. They are similar to Twisties yet they are coated in spices rather than flavoured with cheese or chicken like regular Twisties. I visit a local Indian spice shop every few months to replenish my hoard of spices and cannot resist their ongoing special of three packets for $4 every time I shop there. They are made from corn meal, rice meal, gram meal, vegetable oil and an assortment of spices. As well as tasting great I also like that there are no suspicious codes to watch out for in the ingredients list.

Thanks Celia for hosting this fun event! I look forward to peeking into other people's kitchens too.

Parsnips Bravas

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 02:16:00 +0000

The man and I have been busy preparing garden beds for growing vegetables recently. We are attempting this on a larger scale than our previous endeavours into vegetable gardening and have done a fair bit of research along the way. My mother in law lent me her copy of Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion, an incredibly useful resource for growing and utilising various fruits and veg which also includes lots of recipes, mostly vegetable based. In addition to taking notes from the relevant vegetable chapters for gardening tips, I also scanned through the recipes and took photos of several ones that captured my interest.

One of these recipes was Parsnips Bravas. Although I haven't had much experience eating Spanish food, Patatas Bravas is something I've been keen on trying as crispy potatoes paired with a spicy tomato sauce sounds like a dish I would adore. Parsnips are a vegetable I purchase on rare occasions, usually to roast or add to a soup and I can't recall making anything where they have had more of a starring role. I became enamoured with the idea of Parsnips Bravas and decided that Patatas Bravas would have to wait for another day.

It was a simple recipe to put together, the parsnips were cut into sticks and roasted with olive oil and sea salt. While they were in the oven a chunky tomato sauce with onion, garlic, chilli, smoked paprika and saffron simmered away on the stovetop. When the parsnips had finished roasting, it was only a matter of tossing them through the sauce and adjusting the seasoning.

Everyone loved the Parsnips Bravas. The sauce packed enough punch without being overwhelming spicy and I adored the flavour that the saffron stamens brought to the dish. We enjoyed this with a Fry's schnitzel topped with pizza sauce and vegan cheese, roast potatoes and steamed broccoli. This is a recipe I'll definitely be making again when I'm in the mood for eating parsnips.

Parsnips Bravas (Adapted from Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion)

250g parsnips
Olive oil spray
Sea salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 birds eye chillies (depending on your chilli tolerance)
200g fresh tomatoes, diced (or use ½ of a 400g tin of diced tomatoes)
¼ teaspoon smoked paprika
A pinch of sugar
10 saffron strands

Preheat oven to 200C.

Cut parsnips into bite sited pieces (I cut a couple of sticks from the bottom and quartered the fat tops to make 6 pieces from each parsnip). Line a roasting tray with baking paper and spray lightly with olive oil. Place the parsnips on the tray, spray with additional oil and season with a pinch or two of sea salt. Roast for 45 minutes or until tender and golden, turning the pieces after 25 minutes.

While the parsnips are roasting, heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a deep sided frying pan. Fry the onion and garlic over medium heat for 8 minutes or until softened and beginning to colour. Add the chilli, tomatoes, smoked paprika, sugar and saffron and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. The sauce will be thick and spicy after this time. When the parsnips have finished roasting, toss them through the sauce and season with additional sea salt if required.

Around the world - Stopover 27 - Armenia

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:38:00 +0000

After the conclusion of Vegan MoFo 2012, I boldly stated that my MoFo theme of around the world cooking was likely to continue on a weekly basis. Three of these themed posts were published in November, followed up with two posts in December and just a single one in January. The momentum for around the world posts may have waned a little but be assured they will still appear from time to time. Armenia has proved a little challenging to cross off my list as I cooked this meal almost three months ago and never got around to writing it up!

It didn't take long to decide what to cook for Armenia, when I saw mention of Armenian pizzas called Lahmajoon my mind was made up instantly. Lahmajoon are thin based pizzas traditionally topped with minced meat, vegetables, spices and herbs. The freshly baked pizzas are drizzled with lemon juice and folded around some raw vegetables. After looking up a few recipes, I preferred the sound of one on Taste of Beirut and adapted my version from there.

I've never been much of a TVP fan, I haven't used it much and can't recall a single recipe where it has made a really good impression on me. I decided to give it another chance as it seemed like the simplest substitute and it was also a good chance to clear out the pantry a little. After the dough was prepared and in the rising phase, the rehydrated TVP was processed with onion, green capsicum/bell pepper, garlic, parsley, chilli flakes, allspice, tomato paste, paprika, roasted red pepper strips and fresh parsley to make the topping for the lahmajoon.

The original recipe stated that it made 25 pizzas so I halved the quantities for the dough and rolled it out into 12. I rolled these out in batches fitting two pizzas to a large roasting tray lined with baking paper. They only took 8 minutes to cook and while a tray was in the oven I was busy preparing the next batch.

After sampling the first batch, the salt and spice flavours seemed lacking so I added additional sat and chilli to compensate. The rest of the lahmajoon were a lot tastier with these minor tweaks. The TVP did a decent job as a meat replacement on the topping yet it still hasn't won me over. Wrapping the lahmajoon around some fresh vegetables is how they are traditionally eaten, I enjoyed them this way although the man had ideas of his own. He preferred to tear off pieces of lahmajoon and dip them into hummus.

Lahmajoon (Adapted from Taste of Beirut)

Dough

1 ¼ teaspoons dry yeast

1 ½ teaspoons sugar

¾ cup lukewarm water

2 ¼ cups plain flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ tablespoons olive oil (plus extra to coat the dough)

Place the yeast and 1/2 teaspoon sugar in a small bowl and cover with ¼ cup of lukewarm water. Stir well then set aside for 5-10 minutes until it becomes frothy.

Mix the flour, salt and remaining teaspoon of sugar together in a large bowl. Pour in the yeast mixture, ½ cup lukewarm water and olive oil. Mix until the ingredients come together then turn the dough out onto a clean bench and knead vigorously for 10 seconds. Place the dough into an oiled bowl, roll it around so it is coated evenly with oil then cover with a tea towel and allow the dough to rise for an hour or until it has doubled in size.

Filling & toppings

1 ½ TVP mince

1 ½ cups boiling water

1 small onion, roughly chopped

½ green capsicum/bell pepper, roughly chopped

¾ cup parsley, roughly chopped

1 ½ teaspoons chilli flakes

½ teaspoon allspice

3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

1/3 cup tomato paste

40 grams marinated red capsicum strips

1 tablespoon sweet paprika

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

½ heaped teaspoon sea salt
Lemon wedges, for serving
Shredded lettuce, cucumber sticks, diced tomatoes, for topping

Place the TVP in a bowl, cover with boiling water and allow it to rest for 15 minutes until it has rehydrated.

Transfer the TVP to a food processor bowl and add the onion, capsicum, parsley, chilli flakes, allspice, garlic, tomato paste, red capsicum strips, paprika, cayenne pepper (if using) and salt. Process until everything is finely chopped, stopping to scrape down the sides a couple of times if necessary.

Assembly

Preheat oven to 200C.

Punch down the dough, divide it into 12 even pieces and roll each piece into a ball. Cover the dough balls with a damp tea towel to prevent them from drying out. Roll a piece of dough into a very thin pizza, then place it on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Spread a thin layer of the TVP mixture almost out to the edges using the back of a spoon. Roll out another lahmajoon if you have room on your tray. Bake in the oven for 8 minutes or until the edges are browned. Continue to roll out and top more lahmajoons whilst waiting for the batches to bake.

After removing from the oven, cool for a few seconds, scatter with shredded lettuce and cucumber sticks and drizzle with some lemon juice. Fold up and enjoy!

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Did you know?

The total worldwide Armenia population is estimated to be 11 million although only 3 million Armenians actually live in Armenia! The remaining 8 million Armenians reside in other countries. Russia, the United States, France, Turkey and Lebanon have the highest populations of Armenians living outside Armenia.

Roasted tomato and basil soup

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:57:00 +0000

My mother in law kindly shares home grown fruits and vegetables with me when she has a surplus. I treasure these gifts whenever they appear and try to utilise this special produce in a recipe I haven’t tried before. The couple of tomato plants I grew last summer had a very short season as they were pulled up before we went on holiday so I was delighted to receive an assortment of standard and heirloom tomatoes from her recently.

An idea sprang to mind straight away – roasted tomato soup. As soon as the weather begins to cool down I always crave warm bowls of soup and aim to have a batch on hand for the days when there are no leftovers for lunches. I’ve previously made very tasty roasted tomato pasta sauces with home grown tomatoes and have wanted to try roasted tomatoes in a soup ever since.

I don't feel the need to seek out a recipe if I have a firm idea in mind. In these instances I trust my instincts and tweak the ingredient amounts (when necessary) after taste testing throughout the cooking process. This soup was kept very simple as I wanted the flavour of the tomatoes to shine, lentils were added for some protein as well as thickening the soup. After indecision about which type of stock power to include, I forgot to use any and simply seasoned the soup with sea salt after blending it.

Tomato soups create a divide throughout our household, the man and I adore them and the young man doesn't like them much at all. I'm not sure if that's the reason I don't make them as often as I should or perhaps it's just never cold enough for soup when tomatoes are in the height of their season. This particular soup turned out to have a wonderful creamy texture courtesy of the red lentils and the flavour of the roasted tomatoes paired with basil was lovely. It was an uncomplicated bowl of soup I'm looking forward to making again next tomato season.

Roasted tomato and basil soup

Serves 4

1 kg tomatoes

3 – 4 tablespoons olive oil

Sea salt and black pepper

1 medium onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 medium carrot, diced

1/3 cup red lentils

3 cups water

1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste

30 basil leaves, chopped

Preheat oven to 220C. Cut tomatoes in half and place cut side up on a roasting tray. Drizzle with 2-3 tablespoons olive oil and sprinkle with a few pinches of salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the tomatoes are very soft and juicy.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a stockpot and sauté the onion, garlic and carrots over medium heat until softened, about 10 minutes. Add the lentils and water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

When the tomatoes have finished roasting, add them to the stockpot along with all of the juices from the roasting tray.

Puree the soup with an immersion blender or in batches using a blender. Return the blended soup to the pot, season with sea salt to taste and stir through most of the chopped basil leaves. Allow to reheat, then serve garnished with additional chopped basil and freshly cracked black pepper.

Esperance and the drive home

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 02:16:00 +0000

Norseman marks the start/end point of the Nullarbor crossing, from this town there are two main roads leading to Perth. The first is via the historic mining town of Kalgoorlie which we visited on our way over and the other takes you through the seaside town of Esperance. Before commencing our long drive home we planned to spend two nights in Esperance at a caravan park until I made a last minute discovery of some moderately priced pet-friendly accommodation. After an eight hour drive it was great to be able to check-in to the studio unit and not have to bother about unpacking and setting up camp.

Although the unit was equipped with a kitchenette I was tired from the drive on our first night so once again we ate heat and eat curries. Different varieties of the Tasty Bite curries had been available at the majority of decent sized supermarkets, punjab eggplant had remained one of our favourites throughout the trip. It wasn't until Margaret River that I spotted a different brand called Maharajah's Choice. The range in this brand wasn't as diverse, dhal tadka and saffron rice were the only ones I was able to find that were vegan.

Before leaving Cowaramup I picked some silverbeet/swiss chard and spinach from the garden, cooked them together and sealed them in a snap lock bag. The greens were stirred through the dal to provide some additional goodness. I went slightly overboard with the greens as they dominated the dal slightly too much yet I was still able to determine that this brand had a more interesting blend of spices than the Tasty Bite variety. The saffron rice wasn't terribly exciting, it was nowhere near as good as the basmati rice and peas we ate in the Pattu range.

Heavy rain and thunderstorms set in overnight and the weather was still looking very glum the following morning. We had planned to tour around the Esperance beaches some of which have been voted as Australia's best. As the rain looked like it was going to stick around for a while, instead of checking out the local beaches we took an hour long drive to Wharton Beach in the hope that we would out drive the bad weather.

The rain and heavy clouds followed us the whole way although it started to clear a little when we reached Wharton Beach. We had some fun with Ollie on the pristine, isolated beach with the whitest sand I've even seen before hopping in the car and heading back to Esperance. The weather was clearing when we reached Esperance so we took a shorter drive along the coast to marvel at more stunning beaches (top photo - lookout over Blue Haven beach).

Twilight Beach was named Australia's best beach in 2006. The white sands combined with crystal clear waters and tranquil rock surroundings were simply breathtaking. It was one of the only beaches where dogs were not permitted which didn't matter as the beaches just around the corner were equally gorgeous spots where you could exercise dogs.

The man was exhausted after so much driving and given we had to hit the Nullarbor the next day I suggested that he have an afternoon nap while I did some final bits of food shopping, filled up the car with fuel and took Ollie for a last romp at the beach. This was my best solo decision of the holiday as I spotted a pod of dolphins surfing the waves about 50 metres offshore. I watched them in awe and neglected Ollie's ball game until they eventually disappeared. Even though the sky became full of heavy clouds once again, it was the most perfect ending to the trip!

For dinner we ate a big bowl of spaghetti with a bolognese styled sauce topped with grated Vegusto piquant cheese. I usually make this type of sauce with lentils but couldn't find any dried or tinned lentils at a smallish IGA so I bought a tin of 4 bean mix instead. The sauce also included carrots, mushrooms and zucchini with a touch of chilli. I made a big batch of sauce as I figured it might be an easy meal to eat while travelling home.

After departing Esperance we had three full days of driving to get home which also meant two nights of setting and packing up camp. In the afternoon we started discussing possible stop off points for the night and the man asked how I would feel if he kept on driving. The only concern I voiced was regarding wildlife, night driving in these areas is considered extremely dangerous as it's when the animals are most active. Colliding with kangaroos or wild camels has claimed the lives of many drivers. I probably haven't mentioned before now that the man drove the entire time we were away!

Without going into all of the details, we did continue driving and made it home the following evening. Just under 3000 kms in 36 hours and neither of us had a wink of sleep! It was a crazy thing to do and I wouldn't recommend anyone do the same. The drive had some harrowing moments such as almost running out of fuel because there were no 24 hour service stations on the Eyre Peninsula, passing a huge kangaroo on the opposite side of the highway in the middle of the night, big groups of kangaroos grazing by the side of the road in the night, peak hour traffic in Adelaide, long weekend traffic and road works between Adelaide and Melbourne and more peak hour traffic when we made it back to Melbourne. We did manage to have a lengthy stop in a nice park in Adelaide to stretch Ollie's legs as well as our own.

After such a long drive it was wonderful to be home, especially as we had the young man and our cat Monty waiting for us. The entire trip was such an enjoyable travelling experience which has fuelled my passion for further road trips around this vast country. Over the past month we saw kangaroos, emus, dingos, goannas, lizards, frogs, dolphins, turtles, sting rays, colourful reef fish, water birds, birds of prey, parrots and a beautiful owl in Kalbarri. The total distance we travelled was almost 13,000 kms.

That brings me to the end of my travel posts. The emphasis wasn't solely on food so I apologise for that and thank you all for reading along. More food focussed blogging will be back very soon!

Back through Perth to the Margaret River region

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 02:15:00 +0000

During our time in Perth a family friend kindly offered us accommodation at her property in Cowaramup near Margaret River, about 3 hours south of Perth. This had been playing on our minds during the camper trailer trip and after weighing up the logistics of where to go after Shark Bay we decided to head down south and return the camper trailer early. In order to make it back in time to collect the keys we endured a 10 hour drive which then gave us a rest day in Perth for cleaning up the camper trailer, eating out and enjoying a final swim at the lovely Perth beaches.

After heading back to PAWS for more food shopping and devouring another delicious falafel for lunch we attempted to go for a swim. Stingers (jellyfish with stinging tentacles) were littered across the shoreline of several beaches and clearly visible in the water which was odd as we hadn’t noticed a single one a couple of weeks earlier. As the weather was very warm, we braved the water momentarily to cool off although it wasn’t the relaxing swim we had been hoping for. A bushfire burning in the nearby Swan Valley sent clouds of smoke creeping over the otherwise clear blue sky.

We ordered take-away from Sri Melaka for dinner once again and had an alfresco meal in Kings Park. All of the meals on our first night in Perth were so good we wanted to eat them all again, even though we didn’t have the young man around to help us out this time. We couldn't resist trying some entrees and snacked on crunchy spring rolls and curry puffs. Along with main dishes it was way more food than we needed which didn't matter as the leftovers were devoured the next day. Pictured on my leftovers plate is "beef" rendang, mee goreng noodles and kangkong belacan.

I’ll never forget our arrival at the Cowaramup property as it was like being in the lovliest dream I never wanted to wake up from. After meeting our friend at the front gate we drove down a long driveway with rows of grape vines on one side and a lake on the other. This wasn’t just any old property we had been invited to stay at, it was a huge vineyard with a tastefully decorated luxurious home overlooking an enormous lake. Our friend showed us around the house and vegetable garden and then left it in our hands as she was staying elsewhere with family over the long weekend.

Ollie amused himself all afternoon trying to work out how to catch ducks and the hundreds of other resident water birds, thankfully without success. The man and I slowly unpacked and told each other a million times that the change of plans had definitely been our best holiday decision. When it was Ollie's bedtime we realised that his mattress had been left outside on the front verandah and discovered that a large frog had made it a temporary home. Ollie's fur is strewn across the front of it's nose.

Waking up to this view the following morning was rather surreal.

Followed by a leisurely walk around the lake and through the vines to sample some grapes.

It had been leisurely until Ollie spotted a young kangaroo! Ollie was right on the heels of the poor frightened creature at the beginning of the chase. They ran up and down the rows of vines until we lost sight of them for ages, eventually Ollie reappeared looking exhausted but very disappointed his fun game was over.

The walk worked up our appetites and it was inspiring to have an expansive kitchen at my disposal so I made a tofu and mixed veg stir fry for lunch. The sauce was thrown together from items in my portable pantry in addition to items at the house. From memory it contained soy sauce, garlic, sambal oelek, rice vinegar, sugar and sesame oil. Apart from being slightly too salty from an overload of soy sauce it was a fine meal and one I would like to replicate at home.

Lunch was followed up with a slightly less healthy dinner of pizza! We had been craving pizza ever since our disappointing one at Loving Hut. This was one of the main reasons we stopped off at PAWS, to purchase Cheezly and Redwood cheatin' pepperoni for pizzas. The man always loves a simple margherita and this one was enhanced with some fresh basil from the garden.

The other pizza was Mexican styled. I mashed a tin of Coles Mexican beans with some tomato paste and hot sauce to spread on the base and topped it with red onion, red capsicum/peppers, mushrooms, vegan pepperoni and cheezly. The dried out spinach on top that was procured from the garden was supposed to go on top of the bean layer but it was forgotten until the pizza was fully assembled and about to go in the oven. Regardless of my error, the pizza tasted great and the crunchy spinach provided a interesting texture.

A cooking relic in the house that captured my interest was a bean cutter. I have clear memories of my mum and grandma using these devices throughout my childhoood. Green beans are fed into the holes at the top and then you wind the handle whilst placing pressure on the beans. I don't think I ever ate a whole bean as a child, they were always sliced using one of these machines!

The days dwindled away quickly and we really hadn't seen anything at all in the region as we found it difficult to leave the magical property for long. The man suggested that we visit one of the nearby caves as he had fond memories of seeing them as a child and left it up to me to decide which one. I booked us in for a tour of the Lake Cave which begins with a descent down 300 steps through karri forest into a doline - a hole in the earth's surface.

True to it's name the Lake Cave contains a permanent lake in it's chamber. The main feature of the cave is called the "suspended table", an impressive formation which is the result of the fusion of stalagmites and stalactites and weighs several tonnes.

As we were due to hit the road again, our final meal needed to use up the frozen goods we had remaining. On my plate is a couple of Linda McCartney sausages with fried onions and gravy, mashed potatoes and some mixed frozen vegetables which were sautéed with garlic and a dash of soy sauce.

Neither of us were ready to say goodbye to this beautiful place. Camping had lost its appeal after this comfortable instalment of our journey, and we weren't looking forward to the long drive across the Nullarbor back home either.

Kalbarri, Coral Bay and Shark Bay

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:18:00 +0000

After farewelling the young man at Perth airport, the man and I picked up our portable accommodation for the next 14 days – a camper trailer. Although we were already equipped with our own small tent, we figured that this style of tent would be easier to assemble and pack up and would also give us more space to organise our belongings. We didn’t have a firm itinerary at this stage, our goal was to travel to Coral Bay (approximately 1100 kms north of Perth) stopping off in places for as long as we felt and being mindful of local weather forecasts due to the cyclone season.

In addition to hiring the camper trailer we also rented a portable fridge/freezer and had been under the impression that it could run off the camper trailer battery or our car battery while we were travelling. I had done a bit of homework and pencilled in many bush camps along the way which sounded like peaceful waterfront locations. After discovering that the fridge/freezer hadn’t been charged and the camper trailer battery would only last for one night without power some quick re-planning was in order.

We resigned to staying in caravan parks for this leg of our trip for the sole purpose of electricity. After a quick overnight stop in Jurien Bay we drove to the town of Kalbarri, right on the edge of Kalbarri National Park. I had previously written off Kalbarri as I didn’t think we would be able to camp here with Ollie but it turned out I was wrong. The small town is located just outside the boundaries of the National Park on the mouth of the Murchison River. Along the coast were several dog friendly beaches we were thankful for as the daytime temperatures were around 40C. We enjoyed several trips to the stunning Red Bluff beach (pictured below) and were usually the only people there.

The caravan park we stayed in was one of the nicest on our trip, our camp site had an outlook to the river and a swimming pool was nestled amongst the gum trees. As I didn’t take any food shots at Kalbarri, I’ve included a photo of this rather cute long nosed dragon who was peacefully enjoying basking in the hot sun.

During our stay at Kalbarri most of our fridge items became frozen and we were informed by the hire people that the configuration was 80% freezer, 20% fridge and not the other way around as we had initially thought. Thankfully we still had our esky/car fridge with us and were able to use that for cooling things without freezing them! On our drive up to Coral Bay we passed through the larger town of Carnarvon and I made use of the freezer by stocking it up with bags of mixed frozen vegetables as it was difficult to keep produce fresh in such hot temperatures for any length of time.

Coral Bay is a tiny tourist town situated on Ningaloo Reef, the largest fringing reef in Australia which is renowned for being a temporary home to the whale sharks during their annual feeding season. Snorkelling is accessible as little as 50 metres offshore which is ideal for beginners and youngsters. Unfortunately for us, an impending cyclone further north by the name of Rusty brought some gusty winds to Coral Bay which made the conditions for snorkelling rather challenging. Even though all of the area surrounding Coral Bay is a marine park there was still one beach where Ollie was allowed to run free and the man and I could alternate snorkelling attempts. We spotted lots of colourful fish of varying shapes and sizes as well as the occasional sting ray.

Every afternoon, there was a fish feeding session in the bay so I went along one day to check it out. A marine biologist spoke to the tourists standing around in knee deep water about the types of fish that usually visit during the feeding times as well as the other species which hide amongst the reefs. The hungry fish were extremely bold and not afraid to brush against your legs, some of the fish were rather large and a number of tourists were afraid of getting too close. Everyone was given a handful of food pellets to drop into the water slowly, if you dropped too many in at once the fish would fight over the food. Hand feeding was strictly prohibited as humans can pass on germs and the fish are likely to bite with their sharp teeth.

Even though the weather wasn't ideal, it was difficult to leave Coral Bay as we had travelled over 4000 kms from home and this was the turn around point of our journey. After starting to drive back towards Perth we made a detour at Shark Bay, a World Heritage Area. The region of Shark Bay is home to Monkey Mia, a popular tourist destination due to the daily feeding program of bottlenose dolphins which have been visiting the shallow waters for over forty years.

The number of dolphins that choose to visit the feeding area varies on a day to day basis. The feeding program is only a supplementary part of the dolphins diets. To ensure that all of the dolphins are still hunting for themselves and not becoming reliant on hand feeding, the number of fish each dolphin is fed on a given day is accounted for and strictly limited. We were fortunate to be there in low season and arrived in time for the last feeding session of the day which the least number of tourists attend. In high season the beach and jetty can be lined with hundreds of people straining to view the dolphins, I counted 25 people attending our session.

It was a beautiful experience watching the dolphins swimming a couple of metres away from you. Small turtles were also clearly visible swimming around in the clear waters, rays and sharks were spotted in the distance jumping into air. The man and I rotated between standing in the shallows with the dolphins and holding Ollie on the beach who was fascinated with the huge dark shapes bobbing about in the sea.

On the road to seeing the dolphins I called out to the man to slow down when I spotted a couple of emus further ahead on the road. By the time we reached them one had disappeared into the bushes while this bold one was happy to stick around for a few photos. He wasn't afraid of us and would have stuck his head inside the car if the man hadn't quickly wound up the window.

Although the dolphins are the main attraction, there are plenty of other interesting areas to see in Shark Bay, being a World Heritage Area most of them weren't dog friendly so we stuck with the places we were allowed to visit. Our favourite spot was called Little Lagoon which really wasn't so little. Shallow - yes, little - not really. It's a serene location with a few picnic tables and free BBQs sparsely located around the perimeter of the lagoon. After an initial visit we decided to return for a sunset BBQ and enjoyed a Fry's hamburger there (pictured below with Ollie blissfully chasing seagulls in the background).

I do apologise for the lack of food shots in this post, be assured that I’ll make up for it in the next couple of posts. Sunsets before 7pm meant that we were rarely eating dinner in decent light which wasn’t ideal for taking photos of meals. The few food photos I have included are the only ones I took during this part of our trip even though we did eat more a lot more than burgers. Once again, we relied on Indian heat and eat curry packets after long days of travelling and setting up camp as they were quick and easy to prepare. Some of the other meals I cooked on the camper stove were Thai red curries with tofu and vegetables and Linda McCartney veggie sausages and onions with vegetables. We ate baked beans on toast a few times, sandwiches were our standard lunches and there was plenty of snacking on nuts and fresh fruit in between meals.

We ended up cutting our camper trailer trip short but this was for a good reason. I’ll fill you in on the details in the next post!

Sweetwater Inn

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 01:58:00 +0000

There are still a few posts to be published about my recent travels to Western Australia, for now I’m taking a break to write about a new bar/eatery in Melbourne. After returning from my month away I was sad to hear that the popular vegan soul food stall South had departed from The People’s Market in Collingwood. The good news is that head chef Shannon Martinez has moved onto a new venue and developed another vegan menu for us hungry folks.

Sweetwater Inn is located in South Yarra near the Jam Factory. The small eats side of the vegan menu includes snacks like baked bean and cheese jaffles with soup of the day, bubble and squeak croquettes, beer battered chips with gravy and strass and tomato sauce sandwiches, a lunch box item you may recall from childhood. BBQ prawn skewers with aioli, chipotle ham steaks with pineapple and a crispy chicken salad are amongst the choices in the vegan main meals.

The man and I headed straight for the bigger plates, his belly could not be swayed from the beer battered fish and chips ($16). The soy based faux fish wrapped in seaweed and battered was the closest thing he has encountered to the real deal in years. The accompanying tin of salted, crispy beer battered chips rivalled the ones we are so fond of at Gasometer. A quarter of iceberg lettuce with dressing didn’t really capture his interest but overall he loved the meal.

Apologies for the blurry picture of my meal as it doesn’t do it justice at all. The rissole sandwich ($16) contained a robust pattie bursting with fantastic smoky flavours and a Tofutti cheese slice slathered in lip smacking gravy between two slices of white bread. This also came with a tin of beer battered chips and some tastefully dressed mixed lettuce leaves. These meals were perfect for sharing, I passed over half of my sandwich in exchange for a piece of fish.

Sweetwater Inn has a country theme going on with the interior decked out to suit that vibe. A word of warning is recommended for veg*ns that may find some of the ornaments disturbing. If you can grab a table outside or avert your gaze away from the hanging cow hide, horns, stuffed hawk and skull cabinet I’m sure you will enjoy a nostalgic meal if you mosey on down.

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Sweetwater Inn has also received positive reviews from The Good Hearted and where's the beef.

Sweetwater Inn
1/60 Bray Street, South Yarra
Open 7 days for dinner and on weekends for lunch

Food shopping and sights around Perth

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 09:03:00 +0000

Before we headed off on our next stage of travelling which involved more road tripping throughout remote areas, I needed to stock up on foods. As well as general supermarket shopping we made a trip into the PAWS (People and Animal Welfare Society) vegan store and cafe which is centrally located in Beaufort Street in the city. PAWS stock a wide variety of vegan goodies - personal care and household products, pantry items, confectionery, pet care products, clothing, books, non-dairy alternatives and a freezer full of a variety of mock meats and ice-cream.

It was nearing lunchtime and the huge selection of meals at the cafe beckoned to us to give them a try. Amongst the choices were mock meat burgers and hot dogs, nachos, pies, aromatic curries from the bain marie, raw food and falafels. I choose the latter, the young man was sold on nachos and after a lot of indecision the man ordered a Cajun chicken burger.

I didn’t capture photos of the others meals and allowed their hungry bellies to tuck in straight away. The young man’s nachos didn’t look particularly appealing – corn chips topped with a salsa, sour cream and what appeared to be melted Toffuti cheese slices. The omission of guacamole didn't bother him as he isn’t a fan of avocado and he mentioned that the nachos were slightly better than the ones he used to get from his school canteen. The man loved the spicy kick in his Cajun burger although he would have enjoyed it more if it included a larger quantity of salad.

The falafel pockets (available in small and large sizes) differed from a falafel wrap you would typically find in a kebab shop as it contained a heap of additional condiments. Fresh jalapenos, olives, grated carrot, shredded cabbage, spring onions and coriander chutney were some of the items that made this unique. My photo doesn’t show the falafels hiding underneath the mass of salad but be assured that they were present and very tasty. Although it was a challenge to eat this without making a mess, it was totally worth the effort. The man had a serious case of food envy over my meal. The small size was perfect for my appetite that day, I recommend ordering the large if you are particularly hungry.

All of the staff at PAWS were extremely friendly, some went out of their way offering Ollie bowls of water while we ate at their outdoor tables. There was also plenty of indoor seating available on small tables, communal benches and lounges. The store and cafe were constantly busy throughout our visit and I noted that the curries, falafels and raw plates seemed to be rather popular with the regulars.

The Herdsman was another interesting store we visited. They stock a range of chilli sauces the man’s family have been particularly fond of for years, so anyone who visits Perth is requested to stock up on “Hogans”. When we pulled into the parking bay, The Herdsman was a familiar sight to the man and I. His first casual (under age) job had been there squeezing oranges although it was called Herdsman Market years ago. I also recognised the store's signage from one of Kari’s recent posts about her shopping experience there.

It is basically a gourmet type of supermarket reminiscent of the Thomas Dux grocers around Melbourne. They stock many expensive boutique brands in the pantry aisles you don’t see at regular supermarkets. As well as the requisite Hogans sauces, we also purchased a lovely tomato relish and some Sheese smoked cheddar. Cheezly was also available in the refrigerated section.

The majority of our time in Perth was spent catching up with people, at the beach, by the pool and taking nostalgic tours around the man’s primary and secondary schools and houses that he grew up in. It wasn’t until our last afternoon that we made it to Kings Park and we regretted not spending more time there as the beautifully laid out gardens are enormous and it boasts stunning views over the city and gorgeous Swan river.

For many years I haven’t been very enthusiastic about travelling to Perth as I’m not really much of a city person. As it's so far from Melbourne I always insisted that this trip needed to be paired with further travels throughout Western Australia. Clear blue skies and warm weather every day combined with a rental house (including a pool) being a 5 minute stroll away from a gorgeous dog beach turned out to be difficult to leave. I could have happily kept on reliving more of those lazy repetitive days for a lot longer than we did.

Lunch at The Raw Kitchen Cafe with Kari

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 09:51:00 +0000

Just prior to my travels to Western Australia I mentioned to Kari from Bite Sized Thoughts that I would be spending some time in Perth and was delighted that she was eager to meet up. Kari and I started blogging around the same time and have exchanged many comments on each others blogs over the past two years. Kari suggested lunch at The Raw Kitchen Cafe due to their vegan friendly menu in addition to Fremantle being an interesting location for a tourist.

I was very keen to venture into a raw food eating experience as there is NO WAY I could ever see the man dining out for this type of food. In fact, my eating preferences normally lean towards hot food and I rarely eat salads as a meal yet I’ve wanted to try raw food after hearing so many positive things about it. After reading a few reviews on Urbanspoon about The Raw Kitchen Cafe and a glowing blog post by Bex from Vegan Sparkles, I became infatuated by the concept of a raw vegan pizza. How on earth was a raw pizza going to compare with a standard vegan pizza?

Kari kindly met me at the rental house, drove us over to Fremantle and navigated our way through the streets to the bustling cafe. Whilst the raw pizza had been on my mind for weeks, my decision was almost swayed when we were in the queue as I watched an array of mouth watering meals being taken to the tables. Raw nachos, falafel plates and bowls of pasta made with zucchini noodles all looked amazing. The spinach, basil and avocado soup and a raw club sandwich sounded great too. Everything on the menu was appealing yet I knew I would be regretful if I didn't try the pizza so I stuck with my original plan.

The slice of raw pizza ($9.50 per slice, $17.90 with salads) was on a dehydrated buckwheat base spread with a tomato capsicum salsa. It was topped with mushrooms, tomatoes, avocado, onions, dollops of a deliciously creamy, tangy macadamia and cashew based cheese and fresh basil. This pizza was incredible, a mind blowing taste sensation which had so many different flavours and textures going on. It was unlike any pizza I have ever eaten before and I mean that in a good way. The buckwheat base was slightly difficult to cut into although this was a very minor complaint.

I ordered the slice of pizza with salads which ended up being the same types of salads Kari had selected for her bowl. My favourite was the Thai Papaya salad which was bursting with flavours of fresh coriander, mint and basil amongst the carrots, snow peas and green papaya noodles. The Tarragon salad was largely based on beetroot and it was slightly too earthy for me. I thought it was interesting to begin with but my taste buds grew bored after a while. We both ordered coffees and I found my double espresso with home made cashew and macadamia milk ($5.50) to be the most impressive coffee that I tried anywhere in Perth.

After lunch Kari took me for a wander through Fremantle. We stopped off at The Round House, the oldest public building in Western Australia which was originally opened as a gaol (with 8 cells) in 1931, 18 months after settlement. It was a fascinating but slightly eerie place with loads of interesting historical information to take in. I kicked myself later for forgetting to take photos here. On the way home, Kari gave me a container of smoky roasted almonds which she had made for me as thoughtful snack for the rest of our travels. Half of the batch was demolished by the man in an instant before I insisted that some restraint be shown. The rest of the nuts did last a considerable while longer and given their popularity I will definitely be trying out Kari’s easy recipe soon.

Kari promptly wrote up her thoughts about The Raw Kitchen Cafe and the afternoon we spent together. As it was her first time meeting another blogger in person I wasn’t surprised to read that she felt slightly intimidated as it's a feeling I have experienced in previous meet ups. Kari certainly didn’t come across that way to me, I thought she was a lovely confident interesting person and I thoroughly enjoyed the conversations we engaged in.

Thanks again Kari for the wonderful afternoon, the raw food experience and the lovely smoky almonds. It was an absolute pleasure to meet you in person and I hope we cross paths again one day!

The Raw Kitchen Cafe

Shop 14, The Piazza Arcade

36 South Terrace, Fremantle

Eating out around Perth

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 01:43:00 +0000

After a six hour drive from Kalgoorlie, unpacking the car and driving out to the airport to pick up the young man (he spent six nights with us in Perth before heading back home to start University), a quick meal was in order. I envisaged we would be tired and hungry on our first night in Perth and had printed a menu from Sri Melaka's website so we could pick up some take away food on our way back from the airport to the rental house. Sri Melaka vegetarian restaurant was one of the recommendations Steph suggested when I mentioned my travel plans to Perth. Steph formerly lived in Perth and is now based in Melbourne, so I used her blog as one of my resources for seeking out vegan food.

Sri Melaka’s menu is Malaysian styled Nyonya cuisine predominately based on mock meat. It was difficult to choose from a large number of dishes as they all sounded fantastic. We ordered Chicken Kapitan, Kangkong Belacan and two of our favourite dishes Mee Goreng noodles and Lamb Rendang. The Chicken Kapitan contained chunks of mock meat and potatoes in a very spicy coconut curry gravy, the Lamb Rendang was 100% mock meat in a thick spicy coconut paste. Mee Goreng had a combination of vegetables, mock prawns and possibly some other form of mock meat I couldn’t identify and the Kangkong was Asian water spinach stir fried with chillies and mock shrimp paste. Every single dish was very spicy and our noses were running by the end of the meal. No-one could pick a favourite as we thoroughly enjoyed them all. I’ve been to a few Asian mock meat restaurants around Melbourne but none of them have managed to serve up food as delicious as this! It cost a little over $50 and there were enough leftovers to provide the three of us with a light lunch so it was also very good value.

After reading about the Thai Vegan stall located at the Fremantle markets on Happy Cow, I put it high on my must visit list. I’ve travelled to Thailand a couple of times and haven’t been able to enjoy Thai food in Melbourne restaurants since. A reviewer on Happy Cow piqued my interest by mentioning that the food was that best they had eaten outside of Thailand. The stall is open on market days (Friday to Sunday) and is managed by two lovely women who were run off their feet pounding fresh herbs and spices, stir-frying and preparing fresh salads in addition to taking many orders. There are only a couple of seats to eat at the stall but there is a park nearby as well as plenty of benches in the surrounding streets.

In addition to a few precooked deep fried snacks, the menu is largely based on Thai salads, soups and noodle dishes (priced between $7 - $11). The man had left me to organise our food while he waited outside with Ollie and the young man ventured off to eat whatever he pleased. Salads are usually not popular with the man yet I recalled that he enjoyed the ones we ate in Thailand and boldly ordered a Larb salad, two spicy tofu sticks and a Pad Se Ew noodles. Somehow I managed to order an extra noodle dish which may have been due to the noise level in the markets and my substandard hearing. The amount of heat can be varied to your personal taste so I ordered all of our meals to be spicy.

The spicy tofu sticks ($3 each) consisted of three triangular pieces of crispy tofu on skewers, they were slightly disappointing as they didn't live up to their name in the spice department yet they were tasty enough to enjoy as a starter. The Larb salad was made up of lettuce, spinach, carrot, green papaya and cucumber topped with soy mince and was bursting with fresh flavours of lemongrass, chilli, coriander, mint and lime. It reminded us of the fantastic salads we had eaten in Thailand and I was thrilled that my brave selection turned out to be a success. Pad Se Ew was full of an assortment of vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli, carrot, cabbage and bean sprouts) as well as nicely seasoned tofu and lovely wide rice noodles. I think the extra noodle dish was called Rad Na, it had the same vegetables, tofu and noodles as Pad Se Ew yet it contained more sour flavours and it was spiciest dish of the lot. We loved both of the noodle dishes although the man said that the Rad Na was verging on being too spicy for him.

Perth is fortunate to have a couple of Loving Hut restaurants which are located a suburb apart from each other. Loving Hut at Victoria Park is open for lunches (Wednesday to Sunday) and weekend breakfasts and East Victoria Park is open for dinners (Wednesday to Sunday). I had looked at both of their online menus and after mentioning to the man that there was an opportunity to eat pizza with vegan cheese he was super keen to drive across and get some take away food.

The menu begins with Asian entrees, mains are a combination of Asian meals, pasta dishes and pizza. They also offer a range of desserts and like all of the stores in the Loving Hut chain, everything on the menu is vegan. We were in the mood for pizza and pasta, the entrees also sounded great so we ordered way too much food! The spring rolls and samosas were both good but it was the crispy bites (above) that were the most popular starter. These pieces of mock meat coated in a slightly spicy batter and deep fried may not have been the healthiest choice but boy did they taste good! I've been requested to pull out the deep fryer and recreate this at home one day.

While the vegan pizza had been a draw card, it ended up to be slightly disappointing. The base wasn't great, it was thin but the edges were not rolled out evenly and it was unlike a base you would get from a pizza shop. The vegetable toppings of capsicum, mushrooms, spinach and pineapple were fine but there was a scant quantity of Notzarella cheese covering them. By the time we demolished this amount of food we were too full to tackle the pasta dishes and put them aside for next days lunch. We enjoyed ravioli with a tomato based sauce and I was less impressed with spaghetti carbonara with mushrooms as I thought the sauce had a weird flavour but the man seemed to enjoy it. Loving Hut's strengths may be in their Asian meals given the success we had with the entrees. We paid $64 for three entrees, a pizza and two pasta dishes which was pretty good value.

Beautiful dog beach at Swanbourne which had a clear blue sky every day

The Naked Fig in Swanbourne boasts a lovely view across the ocean and was on our daily walking route from our accommodation to the closest dog beach. It is one of three trendy restaurants in Perth, their other locations are in Swanbourne and Fremantle and each of them has a dedicated vego night. We ordered take away soy lattes (with extra shots of coffee) from The Naked Fig twice after early morning swims. We decided not to return as the wait times were 15 minutes one day, over 20 minutes the following day and the coffees were very weak and milky, apparently made with St Ali coffee beans from Melbourne. It was a shame as The Naked Fig had a vegan breakfast on their menu and veggie burgers with vegan options for lunch and dinner.

Ollie waiting for the ball to be thrown in the ocean (yet again)

There were several other eateries I had wanted to visit but was most disappointed that we didn't make it to Heavenly Plate in Applecross as Kari's pre-wedding high tea sounded amazing as did Steph's dining experience there. The man spent half of his childhood growing up in Perth and was astounded by the amount of vegan food that is on offer these days. Vegans who are planning a trip to Perth should check out the following blogs for heaps of food options around town: Vegan4Life, Bite Sized Thoughts, vegan about town and Vegan Sparkles as well as Happy Cow.

Melbourne to Perth road trip

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 08:58:00 +0000

Hello dear readers, apologies once again for the lengthy break between posts. I’ve just returned from my longest holiday ever (as well as the biggest break I've had from full-time work) travelling around Western Australia. Previous vacations of around two weeks have always gone by too quickly so the man and I have been saving up our dollars and annual leave for a while so we could enjoy a month long holiday. After we adopted Ollie our travel plans developed into an Australian based road trip and dog friendly vacation as we didn’t feel it would be fair to leave our new family member in a boarding kennel for such a long period.

Map of our road trip including nightly stops

For those who are unfamiliar with where I live and/or with the geography of Australia, the distance from Melbourne in Victoria to Perth in Western Australia is approximately 3500 km by road. Most of the drive is through incredibly isolated terrain and includes crossing the Nullarbor Plain which runs across the Great Australian Bight. In the most remote areas, roadhouses (service stations selling fuel, snacks and souvenirs) are up to 200 km apart, often without a single residence in between.

A giant galah stands outside a shop in Kimba - "Half way across Australia"

Travelling from Melbourne to Perth with a dog meant that we were limited to camping along the way as the motel style accommodation at roadhouses don’t allow you to stay with pets. Knowing that it would be virtually impossible to find suitable food for us on the road trip, I planned ahead and prepared tofu bacon, chickpea eggs (adapted from Vegan Eats World) and delicious seitan pastrami from Vegan Diner. These items were kept cold in our Esky (Aussie brand of cooler/car fridge) along with dairy-free margarine, vegan cheeses, Fry’s chicken-style burgers, Linda McCartney sausages and salad items.

Cooking up breakfast on our little camping stove

A portable pantry in the form of a large plastic tub accompanied us on our month long journey which was depleted and restocked several times. Its contents included tinned baked beans, kidney beans, chickpeas and tomatoes, olive oil, bread, rice, Vegemite (yeast extract), ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, Tapatio hot sauce, curry powder, cayenne pepper, mango chutney and snacks such as BBQ shapes, potato chips, nuts and dried fruit amongst other things.

Vegemite on toast (plus avocado for me) is what the man and I eat for breakfast on a regular basis and we continued this tradition throughout our travels. It was a challenge to perfect cooking toast over a naked flame on our gas cooking stove so we did have to suffice with the odd burnt section every so often. We enjoyed a big brekky on one occasion which was simply a matter of heating up precooked tofu bacon, chickpea eggs, baked beans and frying some tomatoes.

The spectacular Bunda cliffs

Packing up campsites, driving long distances and setting up a new campsite at the end of each day meant that we didn’t have much time to stop and look at a lot of the sights along the way. Apart from roadhouse rests for fuel and toilets the only unscheduled stop I insisted on making was to one of the Bunda Cliffs lookouts close to the SA/WA border. This breathtaking spectacle of 120m high limestone cliffs above the crashing brilliant blue ocean was definitely worth a 10 minute break. Heaps of other photos on our 5 day trip across were taken from a moving vehicle which is not ideal although it did allow me to capture the ever changing landscapes along our hasty travels.

As we were spending somewhere between 7 to 10 hours on the road every day, a pre-made sandwich was usually on the lunch menu. Seitan pastrami, Vegusto vegan cheese, avocado, lettuce, tomato and cucumber with the man’s favourite combination of vegan mayonnaise, American mustard and hot sauce kept us satisfied until we crossed the border from South Australia into Western Australia. There are restrictions about bringing fresh fruit and vegetables into Western Australia which meant that we had to ditch our remaining salad items, scoff down the last of our fresh fruit and rely on packaged foods until we reached Kalgoorlie.

Whilst I’m on the topic of packaged foods, our saving grace over the month eventuated from a trip to a local Indian grocer just before our departure. I had been on the lookout for easy, nutritious meals and found some heat and eat curries on their shelves. There only appeared to be 3 vegan meals out of around 15 varieties of vegetable curries as most of the others contained butter or cream. If you do come across the Pattu range, the Baignan Bharta (eggplant curry), Bhindi Masala (okra curry) and Peas Pulav (basmati rice with green peas and cashews) are all vegan. I wasn’t convinced they would be the most authentic tasting meals or spicy enough for our tastes and planned to perk them up with additional spices but it didn't turn out to be necessary. These meals were such a pleasant surprise so we continued to try out other brands of Indian convenience foods from standard supermarkets during the rest our trip.

The sachets are placed into boiling water for 5 minutes or microwaved if you happen to have one handy. Even though some of the curries are rather oily, they aren't particularly high in calories and fat and are free of any preservatives and artificial colours and flavours. The Tasty Bite range are not as flavoursome as the Pattu curries but they are available at most large Australian supermarkets with the Indian foods and are clearly labelled as vegan or vegetarian meals. We particularly enjoyed Punjab Eggplant and Mumbai Mushrooms from the Tasty Bite range. Some nights we scooped the curries up with chappatis rather than bothering to serve them with rice.

Sunrise over wetlands at Port Wakefield

So that's pretty much how we ate whilst travelling remotely for 5 days. Burgers and a few other meals were consumed along the way which I didn't remember to take photos of. There will be more posts to follow about Perth eats and the rest of the food on our trip over the the next few weeks. For now I'll leave you with a recipe which the man fondly refers to as "eggies". I've been making this since testing Ethiopian But'echa (Fluffy scrambled chickpea eggs) for Terry Hope Romero's cookbook Vegan Eats World. My adaptation omits the chillies, includes some black salt and cuts down on a couple of steps and dishes.

Sand dunes at Port Augusta with the Flinders Ranges in the background

Scrambled chickpea eggs aka. eggies (Adapted from Vegan Eats World)

1 cup besan/chickpea flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 2/3 cups warm water
3 tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon black salt
¼ teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
pepper, to taste

Cook the besan in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly for 2 minutes or until the flour darkens slightly and smells toasty. Transfer the besan to a bowl. Pour in the olive oil and fry the onions for about 5 minutes or until they soften. Transfer the onions to a plate or small bowl.

Pour the water, lemon juice, black salt and sea salt into the saucepan. Start adding the besan into the saucepan a few tablespoons at a time, whisking all the time. After all of the besan has been added, use a spatula and continue stirring until the mixture becomes very thick and begins to pull away from the sides. Fold through the onions, turn off the heat and allow it to cool down for 10 minutes.

Drag a fork through the mixture to break it up into small lumps resembling scrambled eggs. Season with additional salt if required and black pepper, to taste.

This may be eaten warm or cold and it can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for at least a week. Adding curry powder and mayonnaise at the end is on my to-do list to create curried "eggs" for sandwiches.

2012 - The unblogged edition

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:31:00 +0000

The 18th January marks the anniversary of my blog which has been going for two years now. During 2012 I only managed to publish 101 posts, which was a bit lower than 138 posts in 2011. Challenges on and off throughout the year prevented me from writing as much as I would have have liked and ever since Ollie's arrival in July a lot of my usual free time has been devoted to training and exercising him (which is very rewarding, good exercise and lots of fun). Although it wasn't the most productive year in the blogging sense, there were many recipes from other blogs I tried along the way so here's a round up of a few I can recall (with photos of ones I've been able to locate).

Post Punk Kitchen - Chesapeake tempeh cakes. Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe posted about this recipe at a time when I was struggling to like tempeh much at all. I found the tempeh in these tasty little "crab" cakes to be very enjoyable although I wasn't particularly fond of the remoulade drizzled on top. I must make these again soon!

Seitan is my motor - Pasta with walnut, mushroom and tempeh sauce. This recipe was given high praise from vegan about town and where's the beef so I was keen to give it a try. Unfortunately it wasn't a winner for us, we didn't enjoy the tempeh in this meal and the flavour of the walnuts in the sauce were too strong for our tastes, so I'll stick to using cashews in creamy pasta sauces.

Holy Cow - Aloo posto. The man and I have a similar distaste for potatoes in curries so I generally steer clear of these types of recipes. I was intrigued by Vaishali's potato based curry as I had never seen a poppy seed paste in a curry previously so I made the recipe with cabbage instead. Even though my blender struggled to break down the poppy seeds completely it was still a very enjoyable dish which my extended family enjoyed too.

Fat Free Vegan - Okara crab cakes. This is an older recipe from Susan V's archives I stumbled upon when searching for okara recipe ideas after making home made tofu. I added the upper end of the stated amount of Old Bay Seasoning (purchased from USA Foods) which resulted in a strong peppery flavour that none of us were particularly fond of.

Inspired eats- Pan fried shiitake mushroom bacon. I was curious to see if a recipe that listed so few ingredients (mushrooms, oil, salt) would actually taste like bacon. The flavour was quite impressive given there was no liquid smoke or smoked paprika involved and they tasted great on baked potatoes with a spicy noochy sauce. It hasn't replaced my favourite tofu bacon but it was fun to try out another facon recipe.

Diet, dessert and dogs - Greek inspired chickpea scramble and Quinoa pizza balls. Both of these recipes tasted fantastic, the chickpea scramble made with besan was full of delicious Mediterranean flavours and is a great alternative to a regular tofu scramble. The quinoa and bean based pizza balls flavoured with tomato paste and herbs turned out a little softer than I expected but they were still lovely to snack on.

Sweet Roots - Coconut milk cheddar - There is something about coconut products that just doesn't work with my palate and I really need to stop experimenting. Heavily spiced coconut based curries are about the only savoury meals where I enjoy coconut and anything else just doesn't appeal. The coconut flavour in this cheese was way too strong for my liking and put me off vegan cheese making for a while.

Wheres the beef - Kentucky Fried Tofu. Cindy's not so secret blend of herbs and spices in this recipe that was written up in the Planet VeGMeL zine last year was really delicious and rather simple to prepare for a slightly indulgent nostalgic meal.

Tales of a Vegan Food Fetishist / Wrapped in Pastry - I'm a huge fan of Leigh Drew's recipes and was rapt to get my guys on board with split peas in her garlic lemon dal recipe as they usually associate split peas with soup. The man and young man were also highly impressed with the Subway style "meatball" subs I made early last year. Pate en croute and pissaldiere (bottom right in the photo above) from Leigh's latest cookbook Wrapped in Pastry were popular at family Christmas gatherings last year. I loved both of these recipes but the man wasn't crazy about the pate en croute.

Vegan Dad - Corned Beef. The man used to have a penchant for corned beef back in the day so I gave this version a try. I wasn't able to track down all of the ingredients and made a couple of substitutions which may have contributed to it's failure. The accompanying white sauce with capers I whipped up wasn't fantastic either. I was sad to read recently that Vegan Dad has farewelled the blogging world as I've enjoyed several recipes from his blog over the years.

Vegan about town - Dan dan mian. I was really disappointed that the man didn't share my enthusiasm for this delicious bowl of noodles and tempeh in a super spicy broth as I was so happy to find another tempeh dish that I enjoyed. We usually have similar tolerances to chilli but on this occasion it was too spicy for him and perfect for me. Perhaps if it's toned down a fraction I may have better success next time?

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I would like to finish this post with a huge thank you to all readers of this blog, everyone who has tried a recipe or two, readers that have left me a comment during these years and the many people I have connected with through regular comments on my blog as well as their own. It really means a lot and all of the feedback I receive is much appreciated. I hope you are looking forward to another year of posts with plenty more stopovers from around the world to come!

Around the world - Stopover 26 - Montenegro

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 09:45:00 +0000

Montenegro was drawn out of the hat the week before Christmas which feels like such a long time ago now. I managed to research, plan and cook up a meal during the chaos of the silly season although I haven't had the chance to post about it until now. Montenegro is a small European country located on the coast of the Adriatic Sea which shares borders with Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo and Albania. Montenegrin cuisine varies depending on the region, the coastal areas have a Mediterranean influence whereas inland regions consume dishes that are also common in Turkey, Hungary, Croatia and Serbia.

When I made a version of Bosnian Zeljanica with filo pastry during Vegan Mofo, I mentioned that I would have liked the opportunity to attempt making burek pastry if I had more time on my hands. Even though time was limited again on this occasion, I stubbornly wanted to give a Montenegrin burek called krompirusa a try. Krompirusa is a snail shaped burek filled with finely cubed potatoes and onions that have been precooked in vegetable stock.

The recipes I adapted my version from were written in Serbian or Croatian and with the aid of Google translate it still was a challenge to make complete sense of the ingredients and methods. My long bench top was an essential tool in preparing the krompirusa and even though I split the dough into two pieces to make smaller bureks, the length of the pastry measured just under 2 metres! After the lengths of dough were rolled out, filling and shaping the krompirusa didn't take much time at all.

As I wasn't sure how flavoursome the filling would be, I searched for an accompaniment and decided to make a dip/relish based on roasted red capsicum/bell peppers called ajvar. It wasn't incredibly complicated to make although it wasn't the speediest process either as the vegetables needed to be oven roasted and onion and garlic sautéed prior to processing it all into a paste.

After all the effort that went into the meal I wasn't impressed with the texture of pastry as it wasn't light and flaky as you would expect from a burek so I'm back to the drawing board with this type of dough. Regardless of the unsatisfactory pastry, the krompirusa tasted fantastic and was surprisingly delicious on it's own. The ajvar was a fantastic partner for the krompirusa and would be perfect to serve alongside a bunch of other dips so I've included my version of it below.

Ajvar (Adapted from Todd's wanderings)

3 small red capsicums/bell peppers
1 lebanese eggplant
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 240C. Place the capsicums and eggplant on a roasting tray and bake for 10-15 minutes or until the skins have charred. Flip the vegetables over and bake for a further 10-15 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven and when they are cool enough to handle, peel off the skins from the capsicum and eggplant and discard the seeds and membranes from the capsicums.

While the vegetables are roasting, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a small frying pan and sauté the onion until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute then turn off the heat and set aside.

Place the cooked eggplants and capsicum in a food processor along with the onion/garlic mixture, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, salt, remaining tablespoon of olive oil and black pepper. Process until it becomes a smooth paste, then transfer to a serving dish.

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Did you know?

The Montenegrin people are reportedly the world's tallest. The average height for males is 186 cm (6 feet, 1 inch) and the average for women is 171 cm (5 feet, 7 inches).

Favourite foods from 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:18:00 +0000

Happy belated new year to all my readers! I hope everyone had a thoroughly enjoyable and restful festive season full of delicious food.

Apologies for such a lengthy break between posts, it feels like ages since my last post was published and I'm also way behind in responding to reader comments as well as reading other blogs. After my family Christmas obligations ended, we spent a few days away camping in the bush which was relaxing as we spent our days swimming, playing with Ollie and watching the different native birds in the area. Instead of being rejuvenated by the camping experience, I picked up a bug just after we got home (the first illness I've had in over 2.5 years!) and have been feeling extremely worn out after dragging myself back to work last week. Now that my head is finally feeling clearer, it's time to get back on track with the first of a couple of posts I've been working on to sum up 2012 in my kitchen.

Favourite soup - Smoky cauliflower (and tofu bacon) soup. With or without tofu bacon this simple blended soup has become a household favourite. Red lentils are a sneaky ingredient to provide the soup with added protein and make it a more substantial bowl.

Favourite Mexican meal - Tofu adobe with refried beans. This has become our standard Mexican meal, when Mexican is requested this is what my fellows are after! We pile refried beans from Viva Vegan along with Tofu with adobe paste (from the Tofu Xpress recipe booklet) onto tortillas with some lettuce, tomato, cashew cream, guacamole and hot sauce. There's an art to how much filling you can load in the tortillas before they become a very messy eating experience.

Favourite meal that can be served anytime of the day - Mexican inspired tofu scramble. I've been making this scramble for such a long time and it never fails to satisfy our taste buds. It's loaded up with heaps of veggies and beans and pairs well with toast for an easy dinner or wrapped into tortillas for breakfast burritos.

Favourite fried food - Tofu “fish” fingers with tartare sauce. We adore Bryanna Clark Grogan's tofu "fish" recipe and have scoffed them down on a few occasions. I also tried a baked version with a polenta coating but they turned out rather dry so I recommend shallow or deep frying them for the the ultimate eating experience.

Favourite finger food - Gobi (cauliflower) pakoras are superb when paired with a coriander chutney from Vegan Eats World. I made these a few times by frying them in a wok and have been meaning to make them again in our relatively new deep fryer.

Favourite noodles - Steph from vegan about town's Char Kueh Teow recipe isn't actually restricted to our favourite noodle dish of 2012, it first appeared in my kitchen in 2011 and has been on semi-regular rotation since. It's a super tasty meal for minimal effort.

Favourite quick meal – Smoky Alfred with broccoli, asparagus, spinach or broad beans. I've been making this pasta dish for years (originally based on Hurry Up Alfredo in Vegan Yum Yum) and we never tire of it for a speedy weeknight meal. I change it up frequently by adding in some seasonal greens and enjoy it with tofu bacon on occasion too.

Favourite from around the world posts - Sri Lankan pan rolls. Although they took a couple of attempts to perfect, I've been very happy with my version of these deep fried snacks that we used to enjoy years ago. Stay tuned for another delicious Sri Lankan snack soon which I've been playing around with recently.

Favourite sweet - Sfoof (Semolina cake) and Chocolate chip cookies. As I rarely feel the urge to eat sweet things I'm leaving this one up to my fellows. Bryanna Clark Grogan's semolina cake with lemon or lime syrup from World Vegan Feast was the definite winner for the man last year, when he is craving a cake this is what he always asks me to make. The young man's choice is slightly more mundane, chocolate chip cookies are his fave which is fairly predictable coming from a teenage boy.

Number 1 household favourite - Calzones. The regularity of our calzone nights has dropped back from fortnightly to about once a month but they are still without a doubt the recipe I am requested to make if I ask the others what they feel like eating. I can't imagine them disappearing from meal rotations in the near future either!

Pan fried dumplings

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 08:20:00 +0000

Every so often I concoct a random meal out of bits and pieces that need using up in the fridge. Sometimes I surprise myself with how well these experiments work and realise later I foolishly haven't recorded the recipe. Other times when I have made the effort to jot down notes, the meal hasn't been that great but at least I have something to work on for next time around.

The other night I made a big batch of dumplings with a bunch of leftovers in the fridge which turned out to be amongst the nicest dumplings I've made. Gyoza wrappers were nearing their best before date, cabbage was discolouring around the edges, mushrooms were becoming soft and I had mistakenly bought a bag of carrots even though I had a full bag in the fridge. To save time preparing the filling, I used my food processor to chop the onion and then the mushrooms. Whilst the onions were frying I attached the grating disc to shred the carrots and cabbage, so the only chopping I needed to do by hand was the garlic and ginger. After the vegetables had softened I seasoned them lightly with a bit of light soy sauce, tamari or regular soy sauce would also work well if you don't have this on hand.

One of my favourite kitchen gadgets is a set of dumpling presses I purchased from Minh Phat in Richmond, a huge Asian grocery store. From memory the set only cost $2 or $3, I believe they are worth their weight in gold as they create a neat finish with minimal effort and save copious amounts of time. All you have to do is place a wrapper on the press, spoon in a small amount of filling (being mindful not to overfill them) and press the little handles together. The edges of the wrappers can be moistened with a drop or two of water if the wrappers aren't sealing properly, although sometimes I find there is no need for this step.

Our preferred style of dumplings is pan fried, I probably only steamed dumplings once before we became hooked on the crispy pan fried style. After the dumplings are browned on each side, a splash or two of water is added to the pan which is covered briefly to create some steam which completes the cooking of the wrappers. As I was in a creative type of mood I made up my own dipping sauce to go with the dumplings. I don't have the precise measurements for this so I won't add it to my recipe list yet. It was a mixture of soy sauce (~3 tablespoons), sesame oil (~2 teaspoons) and a finely sliced birds eye chilli. Some minced garlic would have been been lovely in this too.

These dumplings were a household success, the man isn't fond of too much ginger and thankfully I hadn't gone over the top. There was no way the three of us were going to make it through a batch of 48 dumplings even though the young man managed to polish off 20 on his own! I was pleasantly surprised that the leftovers held up well when I enjoyed them cold for lunch the following day.

Pan fried carrot, cabbage and mushroom dumplings

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1.5cm piece ginger, minced
2 medium carrots, grated
400g green cabbage, finely shredded
100g portobello mushrooms, finely diced
2 tablespoons light soy sauce, tamari or regular soy sauce (approximate measurement, add to taste)
48 gyoza wrappers
Olive or peanut oil, for frying
Water, for the steaming step

Heat the olive oil in a large deep sided frying pan over medium heat and cook the onions for 5 minutes until softened. Stir through the garlic and ginger for a minute then add the carrot, cabbage and mushroom. Cook, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes or until the vegetables have reduced in size and softened. Stir through the light soy sauce and continue to cook until the mixture is fairly dry. Turn off the heat and transfer the contents to a large bowl. Allow the mixture to cool down before stuffing the dumplings (I put mine in the freezer for 15 minutes to cool it quickly).

Construct the dumplings using a dumpling press by placing a wrapper on the pressing tool, spooning a small amount of mixture into the centre and pressing the handles together. If you don't have a dumpling press and are feeling adventurous there are some folding tips and pictures here (be warned that this isn't a vegan site).

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan with a lid over medium-high heat. Place as many dumplings that will fit into the pan comfortably and cook for a couple of minutes or until browned. Flip them over and brown the other side. Splash a few tablespoons of water into the pan and cover with a lid. Allow to steam for 3 more minutes then remove the lid, if there is any liquid remaining allow it to cook off. Gently remove the dumplings from the pan with a spatula and continue pan frying the rest of the dumplings in batches.

Serve with your preferred dipping sauce.

Ren Dao

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 07:17:00 +0000

We headed over to Elsternwick on Monday evening to dine at Ren Dao, an Asian vegetarian restaurant. The extensive menu offers a wide range of entrees, soups, curries, stir-frys, noodles, and rice based dishes. The majority of the meals are vegan and it's also possible to remove egg from some of the rice and noodle dishes. The mock meat used in the meals is based on gluten, soy or mushrooms and there are plenty of gluten free meals available. It can be overwhelming being presented with so many choices when you aren't used to having many so I left it to the man to chose the entrees while the young man and struggled to decide on a main.

The man surprised me by selecting an entree outside of his standard order of spring rolls. The 5 Spice Loh-Bak Rolls ($7.50) contained a subtly spiced taro mince filling wrapped in crispy bean curd skin. These tasty parcels got us off to a good start.

Curry puffs are always hard for us to resist and these large ones ($7.50) happened to be a fantastic choice this time. The mixed vegetable filling was blended with a perfect amount of curry spices and the sweet sticky dipping sauce was a nice condiment.

Penang Curry ($19.50) was a mild-medium spiced coconut based curry containing mock chicken chunks, tofu and potato cubes. It wasn't quite as spicy as we were led to believe yet it was still thoroughly enjoyable.

The King Do Pork Chop Hot Plate ($21.90) was a tangy sizzling hot plate piled high with a large assortment of vegetables and soy-based mock meat slices hiding underneath. This was the most realistic mock meat I have ever eaten but I actually found the flavour and texture a little disturbing as it was too close to my omnivorous recollections. The man and young man adored this and declared it their pick of the night.

Penang Rendang ($18.50) was too intriguing for me to pass up as we all love rendang and I was interested to try this version made with a variety of mushrooms. In addition to the coconut based curry sauce, it was full of grated coconut which made the coconut flavours too intense for my liking. It probably wasn't the wisest menu choice given we had already selected another coconut based curry.

The staff at Ren Dao were incredibly attentive throughout the evening and extremely helpful with making menu suggestions when the young man and I were stalling. The serving sizes were very generous, we could have easily done without one of the mains and this would have been sufficient food for the three of us. The staff offered to package up the leftovers which we happily enjoyed for lunch the next day. I'm keen to head back to Ren Dao as there are many more dishes I would like to try.

Where's the beef are the only other veg*n bloggers that have written about Ren Dao to date. Ren Dao was also mentioned by Brianna in her Southside staples article in the Planet VeGMeL zine.

Ren Dao Vegetarian Asian Cuisine
275 Glenhuntly Road, Elsternwick
9523 0150
Lunch Monday to Friday
Dinner Monday to Saturday
Closed Sundays
BYO Beer and Wine

Around the world - Stopover 25 - Seychelles

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 09:05:00 +0000

The Seychelles are a group of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean situated off the eastern coast of the African continent. Like many other island countries, seafood features predominantly as does locally grown produce such as breadfruit, coconut, yam, cassava, papaya and several varieties of bananas including plantains. The food has a mixture of influences from Indian, Chinese, African, French and British cuisines. Fiery hot Creole styled curries are commonly eaten based on a spice blend called massalé which is unique to these islands.

After encountering several dodgy websites that promised recipes from the Seychelles and ended up offering malicious software instead, I came across a suitable recipe on BBC food, a far more credible site. The recipe was for a Seychelles fish curry which I planned to make with tofu and vegetables. Part of the appeal of this recipe was that it used its own blend of freshly ground spices as this always enhances the flavour of a curry. Spice blends are easy to prepare when you have whole spices in the pantry and a grinder to whiz up them up into a powder.

My favourite type of tofu for adding to curries and stir-frys these days is the Savoury Baked Tofu from Vegan Eats World. I cannot speak highly enough of this recipe, the salty, sweet, sour and slightly spicy marinade is a cinch to put together and then its just a matter of baking the tofu in the oven. I make a batch almost every week, usually a day or two before I'm planning to use it as I find it easier to slice after it has cooled down. If you own Vegan Eats World, you should definitely check this recipe out if you haven't done so already. My only advice is to ensure that the tofu fits snugly in your baking dish otherwise the marinade will burn.

With a freshly made spice blend, delicious baked tofu and a couple of favourite vegetables, I was confident that this curry would be a wonderful meal. Unfortunately this wasn't the case! In addition to the massalé, the recipe included ground anise/aniseed, tamarind water and fresh thyme. I used dried thyme instead of the fresh herb and substituted tamarind puree for the tamarind water. What I thought would be a moderate amount of tamarind turned out too be slightly too much giving it too much sourness for my liking. The dried thyme also dominated and the blend of spices didn't resonate with any of us. It was definitely not a disaster, just a slight disappointment as I had such high hopes for it.

I would have liked to attempt another dish from the Seychelles but time is short with Christmas around the corner so I'll bid farewell to the islands and move on to the next country.
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Did you know?

The Seychelles is home to a UNESCO World Heritage site called Aldabra. Aldabra is the world's largest raised coral atoll which boasts the largest population of giant tortoises in the world and is home to the only flightless bird in the Indian Ocean, the White-Throated Rail.

South

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 21:30:00 +0000

After reading (and drooling over) initial reviews and the general hype about South, I was desperate to make a trip to The People's Market in Collingwood to try it out for myself. South is a vegan food stall specialising in food from the southern parts of the United States. The people running this venture hail from two of my recent favourite eateries The Gasometer and The Mercy Seat (which is now closed) so I had a strong feeling it was going to be fantastic.

It was very tough deciding what to order so the man and I chose to split three meals between the two of us. The Philly Cheesesteak ($12) was served in a nice crunchy roll with tender "steak" pieces and an oozing cheese sauce with a mild flavour. It was slightly messy to eat although definitely worth the effort.

The man was keen to try out the Chilli Dog ($8) being a former hot dog lover years ago. Vegan hot dogs and sausages don't usually win my approval yet this one was best I have tried and the accompanying chilli sauce was amazing.

To round out the meal we ordered the Louisiana Beans and Rice ($9) and drizzled some extra hot sauce on top. The beans had a lovely smoky flavour underneath the array of herbs and spices. I found it difficult to stop eating when I had finished my share and reluctantly passed the rest over to my bean loving husband who adored them too.

All of these meals were so delicious and I wouldn't hesitate to order any of them again. Neither of us could pick a favourite as they were all wonderful in their own way.

While the rest of The People's Market didn't really capture our interest, I have no doubt we will be back many times over the summer months to experience more of the rotating menu that South is cooking up.

South created quite a stir in it's opening week. It received positive reviews from The Good Hearted, where's the beef and easy as vegan pie.

South
@ The People's Market
65-68 Stanley Street, Collingwood
~~Thursday - Sunday 12pm - 9:30pm~~ (Closed in Feb 2013)

Around the world - Stopover 24 - Bhutan

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 21:47:00 +0000

The kingdom of Bhutan is nestled between India and China at the eastern end of the Himalayas. The majority of the country is mountainous with only 10% of it's fertile land situated in the valleys. Red rice is one of the staples, a medium grain rice with a pinkish hue which is the only variety of rice that can be grown at high altitudes.

My food memory led me to a Bhutanese pineapple rice recipe in Appetite for Reduction as I've read many positive reviews of it around the blogosphere. I was able to track the red rice down in a local Indian spice shop, it has a texture that is similar to brown rice although the cooking time is slightly less. The man isn't a fan of brown rice at all so I was concerned he wouldn't like this and the inclusion of pineapple definitely wasn't going to win him over. I'm not particularly fond of fruit in savoury meals either and replaced the pineapple with some broccoli instead. After the red rice was cooked, it was fried with onion, garlic, ginger, Thai red curry paste, soy sauce, agave and coriander. An extra dash of curry paste and soy sauce was added after an initial taste test to give it some extra heat and flavour.

To round out the meal, I veganised a recipe originally made with chicken called Jasha Maroo. It was frustrating to find exactly the same recipe duplicated on several websites as the method was unclear and didn't state when to add some of the ingredients that were listed. I resorted to cooking it in the manner that seemed most logical to me, frying the onion first followed by the garlic, ginger and chilli and then adding the rest of the ingredients. The tofu I used in this dish was a new variety from the supermarket labelled as medium firm, it actually resembled silken tofu more than firm tofu so I was extremely careful during the cooking process.

This was a fantastic dinner, the tofu dish had a perfect amount of heat for us and it was an excellent partner for the red rice. I was happy with my decision to season the tofu with "chicken" stock rather than salt as it provided an extra depth of flavour. This was also a speedy meal which gave it extra bonus marks. I was very pleased that the man enjoyed it, particularly the rice dish and delighted when he kept going back for more! As a result of this successful meal, red rice may become my brown rice substitute from now on.

Jasha Maroo (Adapted from Asiarecipe)

300g medium firm or firm tofu, drained, pressed and cut into pea sized cubes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, sliced into rounds
2 cloves garlic, minced
2cm piece ginger, minced
2 green thai chillies, thinly sliced (use 1 chilli for a milder version)
1 tomato, diced
1 teaspoon vegan "chicken" stock powder
½ cup water

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, add the onion and fry for 5 minutes until soft. Add the garlic, ginger and chillies a fry for a minute then gently stir through the tofu, tomato, "chicken" stock powder and water. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer, covered for 10 minutes.

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Did you know?

Bhutan was the first country to measure the national index of happiness which later became an accepted worldwide index. Bhutan's third king, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, made a fleeting remark in a speech that was taken seriously by the Bhutanese. According to Buddhist beliefs, happiness is something that one needs to strive for and the country's leading thinkers set about to find a way to quantify it. The index of happiness is measured on four areas: sustainable development, cultural values, natural environment, and good governance.

Low fuss camping food

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 06:33:00 +0000

Over the last couple of decades camping trips with friends, family and the young man have been a popular pastime of ours. These trips have varied widely in locations yet there is a particular spot in between Seymour and Nagambie we have returned to more than others as dogs are permitted and to be able to swim in a creek with your pooch is so much fun for all. The other bonus is this place is it's generally not overcrowded with people which is often the case with more popular camping locations.

After a recent failed attempt trying out a new camping site that was full to the brim on a long weekend, the man and I were keen to head back to our rugged place of serenity. As we were only camping overnight I decided to make the food completely low fuss and picked up some supplies from Oasis bakery. This also meant packing less as we didn't need to worry about bringing the camp stove, gas bottle and cooking utensils.

Not long after arriving and setting up the tent, we constructed some delicious falafel wraps in a matter of minutes. They were made with mountain bread, hummus, falafels, a mixture of salad leaves, tomato, red onion and a dash of Tapatio hot sauce. Ollie doesn't usually get the chance to be involved in food photography and jumped at the chance on this occasion! He is very well mannered around food and didn't think about taking a bite.

Our dinner plates consisted of dolmades, more falafels, baba ganoush, hummus, olive bread and a bean stew. I was on the verge of buying a chickpea or bean salad whilst shopping at Oasis but after I spotted a bean stew the thought of a salad was immediately dismissed. The bean stew was labelled as being spicy yet the man thought it needed more oomph and stirred through a decent amount of hot sauce before we served it up. Although this is something you would usually eat warm we thoroughly enjoyed it as a cold dish. A similar spread was also enjoyed for breakfast the following morning.

These foods were perfect for an overnight camping trip and I can imagine they would also be great for remote road trips where vegan foods are limited. Even though I'm fortunate to have a fantastic Middle Eastern bakery nearby, some of the items we took away can also be sourced from most Australian supermarkets.

Ollie was mortified when we departed after his morning dip and uncharacteristically cried most of the car trip home. We are glad although not surprised that he enjoyed it as much as we did and are keen to take him for a longer camping trip soon.

Around the world - Stopover 23 - Greece

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 21:14:00 +0000

Greek food makes an appearance every so often in my kitchen. Moussaka, spanakopita and seitan gyros in home made pita bread are some of our favourite Greek dishes that I make on a semi regular basis. One of our highest rotation recipes from Vegan Eats World is Terry Hope Romero's oven roasted gyros made with chickpea and olive seitan because my fellows adore it and request it often. Despite being an avid hater of olives, it's the only meal where the young man will eat them as their strong flavour blends into the seitan so they are barely detectable. When Greece was drawn it was no surprise that I was hounded for gyros wraps to be on the menu again. On this occasion I made a similar tofu based garlic sauce to one I've previously posted about and added a touch of fresh dill.

All of the Greek recipes from Vegan Eats World that I tested were full of flavour and thoroughly enjoyed. I didn't get the chance to try Yemista (capsicums and tomatoes stuffed with rice) during testing and I still hadn't made anything new since the book arrived so I was well overdue for branching out into a new dish. Yemista take a little while to prepare although there was plenty of slack time whilst they were baking in the oven. The dill and mint flavoured rice filling was lovely and the Yemista paired wonderfully with some left-over oven roasted gyros and pita bread. This is another fantastic Greek recipe from Terry!

After flicking through World Vegan Feast by Bryanna Clark Grogan, I found some Greek recipes and picked out a Gigante bean and chard stew as I knew it would please the man. Due to time limitations I wasn't very faithful to the recipe. The tofu feta was omitted, the silverbeet/chard was simmered in the stew rather than pre-cooking it separately and as I cooked it on the stovetop rather than in the oven, it didn't make sense to top it with breadcrumbs. The use of tinned lima beans would have made this meal an even speedier process. It was still a very tasty meal with these changes, the flavour of the dill was the highlight amongst the onions, tomatoes, beans and silverbeet/chard. A slice of toasted olive bread from Crumbs Organic Bakehouse was the perfect tool to clean our plates with.

Gigante bean and silverbeet stew (Adapted from World Vegan Feast)

250g dried lima beans or 2 x 400g tins lima beans, drained and rinsed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, diced
6 spring onions, chopped
2 cups vegan "chicken" stock
1 x 400g tin diced tomatoes
1/4 cup fresh dill, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
1 bunch silverbeet/chard leaves, washed well and chopped

If using dried lima beans, place them in a large bowl, cover well with water and allow to soak for at least 8 hours. Drain the beans in a colander and rinse thoroughly. Place the beans in a saucepan and fill with water so there is about 5cm of water above the beans. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer until the beans are tender (mine took about 2 hours).

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat and fry the onions and spring onions until they have softened and are beginning to brown. Add the drained beans, "chicken" stock, tomatoes, dill, salt and pepper. Stir through the chopped silverbeet/chard in batches until each batch has softened and reduced in size slightly. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered for 30 minutes.

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Did you know?

Greece is the world’s third leading producer of olives. The Greeks have been cultivating olive trees since ancient times and there are some olive trees still producing olives that were planted in the thirteenth century.

Veg*n shopping in the South Eastern suburbs

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 08:55:00 +0000

Every so often a reader will enquire about where an uncommon ingredient for a recipe can be purchased from. I'm always more than happy to assist yet I thought it would also be helpful to write some posts about my food shopping sources. My plan is to include these posts on a shopping index page soon. The below text had already been written for the Planet VeGMeL birthday zine and to get the ball rolling I've posted it here.

If you haven't done so already, take a look at the fabulous zine for many more interesting veg*n articles. The Kentucky Fried Tofu recipe supplied by where's the beef is really delicious too!
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When I started reading blogs years ago I loved finding out about interesting veg*n places around Melbourne to stock up on goodies. The only problem was gems like Radical Grocery, La Panella, Vincent Vegetarian Food etc. were on the opposite side of town for me so it’s not often that I pop into these shops. Although there aren’t any exclusively veg*n shops I’m aware of in my area, there are a few stores I visit often to replenish the supplies in my pantry.

USA Foods - www.usafoods.com.au
110 Cochranes Road, Moorabbin
9555 0288

USA Foods interests me most for their range of liquid smokes, chipotle chillies in adobo sauce, tomatillos, masa flours and other various types of chillies and hot sauces. A huge proportion of their stock is made up of soft drinks, potato chips and confectionery so I steer clear of these aisles and focus on hunting down items for my next Mexican feast.

Their online product catalogue indicates when a particular item is out of stock and provides an option for an email notification to be sent to you when the item becomes available again. It’s handy to check the website before heading out there to avoid disappointment!

Oasis Bakery - www.oasisbakery.com.au
9/993 North Road, Murrumbeena
9570 1122

Oasis Bakery is a very popular Middle Eastern bakery that has been thriving for many years. The name is rather misleading as Oasis isn’t limited to selling freshly baked goods; it’s also a cafe and a grocery store. I haven’t eaten from the cafe for ages but before going vegan I used to love their cheese and spinach triangles and pizzas. Some of the tasty vegan options available are falafel wraps, zaatar pizzas, spinach and walnut triangles as well as a couple of suitable hot dishes in the bain marie like ful medames and a veg dish of the day.

Freshly made dips, salads, falafels, dolmades and harissa can be found in the fridge section. A variety of pizzas and triangles can be purchased fresh or frozen. Vegan sweets aren’t as plentiful although I did enjoy some coconut and date rolls recently as well as peppermint chocolate. All products are clearly labelled and a great thing about Oasis is that they do not use palm oil in any of their products. My favourite sections these days are the bean and spice aisles. Every type of dried bean imaginable is available and the variety of spices and spice blends on the shelves is enough to make your head spin.

Sunnybrook Health Store – www.glutenfreeshop.com.au
553 North Road, Ormond
9578 6400

Sunnybrook is my local health food shop; it has a big focus on gluten free foods although it is not 100% gluten free. I've been shopping here for years to pick up items like nutritional yeast, unusual types of flours, Sweet William cooking chocolate, Soymilke condensed milk, Cheezly, smoked tofu, the occasional Tofutti product and ironically gluten flour. Sunnybrook also has a small section of organic fruit and vegetables and stocks personal care and household products.

Around the world - Stopover 22 - Singapore

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 21:19:00 +0000

The small island country of Singapore is located on the southern part of Malay peninsula, separated from Malaysia by a narrow strait of water. Malaysian food is commonly found in Singapore as well as Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, Middle Eastern and Western dishes. Noodle dishes are always popular at our house so I happily selected a few to make from an abundance of choices and due to my unsatisfactory attempt at making murtabak for Brunei I was also keen to give this another try.

This version of murtabak was adapted from a Singaporean recipe with a promising blend of spices (no cardamon overload in this version!) and I used lentils and mushrooms instead of tempeh this time. Murtabak usually has egg in the filling so I seasoned some crumbled tofu with kala namak (black salt) prior to mixing it with the rest of the filling ingredients.

I also wanted to try making the roti and watched a few videos on YouTube of murtabak being made in market places. It was a bit daunting to see them being prepared with such ease as I knew it wouldn't be the case for a novice yet it also provided me with a few tips and the inspiration I needed. After making the dough, it was rested for an hour in a bowl coated with oil. The oil made the dough very supple and created an elastic texture that is required for it to be stretched out to a paper thin consistency. My technique was fairly rudimentary after the dough was initially flattened between my palms. I placed the dough on the bench holding one side down and slowly stretched the other side in a flapping motion, if that makes sense! The edges didn't turn out as thin as the centre so I pinched them with my fingertips and stretched them out last as best I could. Perhaps a rolling pin could have been better for this task!

The initial concerns I had about the thin dough not holding the filling went away after the first murtbak was successfully assembled and I gathered some momentum for the remaining ones. We loved the curry dipping sauce last time I made murtabak so I made another one based on a recipe from Munting Kusina. Thai thin soy sauce was substituted for fish sauce and even though I used a hot curry powder it didn't turn out too spicy. This turned out to be one of the favourite meals I have cooked recently. The murtabaks paired with the dipping sauce were so delicious and everyone was disappointed that there weren't any leftovers.

Mee Goreng is one of the man's favourite noodle dishes, he frequently orders it from Chinese/Malaysian restaurants but I haven't been able to replicate it at home as well as I would like. This latest attempt was much closer to how we are used to it although I was a little heavy-handed with the chilli and it still needs a few minor tweaks to the ingredients in the sauce.

Singapore noodles have become rather popular at home since In the Mood for Noodles posted a fantastic recipe last year. This time I tried a recipe from World Vegan Feast by Bryanna Clark Grogan. I found it interesting that it used jalapeno chillies and smoked tofu as well as seitan or soy curls. I omitted the seitan/soy curls and bumped up the quantity of the smoked tofu instead. Bryanna's version was very tasty and quite spicy although the recipe from In the Mood for Noodles remains the household favourite as it's the most similar to Singapore noodles we have eaten locally.

Murtabak with lentil and mushroom filling (Adapted from MakanTime)
Makes 6

Roti dough

2 cups plain flour
½ heaped teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons dairy-free margarine
2/3 cup lukewarm water
2-3 tablespoons peanut oil

Combine the flour and salt together in a large bowl, then rub the margarine into the mixture with your fingers. Add the water and mix together . Knead the dough for 10 minutes, then divide it into 6 even pieces and roll each piece into a ball. Place 2 to 3 tablespoons of peanut oil in a large bowl, roll the dough balls in the oil to coat them, then allow them to rest, covered with a tea towel for an hour.

Filling

½ cup brown lentils
150g firm tofu, crumbled
¼ teaspoon kala namak (black salt)
1 tablespoon peanut oil
2 small onions, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2cm piece ginger, minced
200g button mushrooms, diced
1 teaspoon garam masala
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup water

Place the lentils in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Drain in a colander.

Crumble the tofu into a small bowl. Add the black salt and stir well to combine.

Heat the peanut oil in a deep sided frying pan or large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and fry for 5 minutes or until soft. Stir through the garlic and ginger for a minute then add the mushrooms and allow them to cook until softened. Add the garam masala, cayenne pepper, turmeric and salt and stir for a minute. Stir through the cooked lentils and the water and allow to cook on low heat for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and mix the the tofu through. Allow the filling to cool down prior to assembling the murtabaks.

Assembly

Take a dough ball in your hands and flatten it between your palms. Place it on your bench and carefully stretch out the dough with your hands until it is a rectangular shape and your benchtop can be seen through the dough. Place 1/6 of the filling in the centre of the dough and smooth it into a small rectangle. Wrap the ends of the roti over the filling so it is enclosed like a parcel. Place the roti on a plate seam side down and repeat the steps five more times.

Pour a couple of tablespoons of peanut oil in a frying pan and place on medium-high heat. Fry the rotis in batches for a couple of minutes on each side or until browned. Top up with additional oil in between batches as necessary.

Serve with the following curry dipping sauce.

Curry dipping sauce (Adapted from Munting Kusina)

1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon hot madras curry powder
pinch cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon turmeric
1 ½ tablespoons Thai thin soy sauce
165ml tin (2/3 cup) light coconut milk

Heat the peanut oil in a small saucepan over medium heat and fry the garlic for 30 seconds, or until softened but not browned. Add the curry powder, cayenne pepper and turmeric and stir for 30 seconds. Pour in the Thai thin soy sauce and coconut milk and bring to the boil then turn off the heat and allow to cool. Transfer to a bowl for dipping.

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Did you know?

Although Singapore is one of the smallest countries in the world, it's population density is the second highest.

Crumbs Organic Bakehouse

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 21:18:00 +0000

Crumbs Organic Bakehouse in North Melbourne is the newer sister bakery of a larger operation in Ascot Vale that has been around for a couple of years. A whirlwind trip into the city on Saturday morning gave me the chance for a visit to Crumbs to stock up on some goodies to get us through a busy weekend.

Crumbs also serves coffees and has a small bar for eat-ins. All of their baked goods are vegan and organic which meant tough decisions for me. After much deliberation, I ended up buying some chocolate iced and jam-filled donuts ($3.50), pizza slices ($4) and a loaf of olive sourdough bread ($5.50).

The chocolate iced donuts were impressive in size and delivered in taste yet it was the jam donuts that were my favourite. They were filled with a lovely raspberry jam that left the generic "jam" normally used in these types of donuts for dust.

One of the pizza slices was topped with red onions, tomatoes, olives, sun-dried tomatoes and herbs and the other slice had mushrooms, tomatoes, capsicum and sun-dried tomatoes. Although we normally tend to enjoy pizzas with vegan cheese, I didn't miss it at all on these slices as the chewy sourdough crust was just as enjoyable as the toppings.

The olive sourdough loaf had a crunchy crust, with a soft and airy interior and a mild sour flavour. I enjoyed it fresh and even more over the following days, lightly toasted and smeared with Nuttelex. I would be stopping in to Crumbs regularly for loaves of bread if they had a bakery in my neighbourhood.

Crumbs Organic Bakehouse was brought to my attention recently by American bloggers NutriDude and NutriWife who spent some time in Melbourne on their trip to Australia. The Good Hearted also posted about Crumbs last month and rated it highly. Where's the Beef visited on the same day as me and have also posted a complimentary review.

There were a few other veg*n blogs that mentioned sampling Crumbs foods at various places a few years ago - vegan about town, In the Mood for Noodles and Eat More Veggies.

Crumbs Organic Bakehouse
16 Errol St, North Melbourne

Monday to Friday - 6:30am - 6pm
Saturday - 8:30am - 3pm
Sundays - Closed