Monday, January 30

Sunday 29 January 2012

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything for a while but I'm experiencing significant relationship problems. Please bear with me while I try to deal with it. I'm doing my best to keep going and keep blogging but you never know what's around the corner.

Breakfast
Kelloggs Crunchy Nut Cornflakes

Lunch
Went to the movies and my very healthy lunch consisted of salt and vinegar chips and peanut butter cups.

Dinner
Baked potatoes with butter, corn, capsicum, and cheese.

Friday, January 27

Thursday 26 January 2012

Breakfast
Tip Top Raisin toast with Nuttelex (vegan). After these two pieces I went back for two more.

Dinner
Pasta with lentil and tomato sauce (vegan), the recipe can be found here.

Snacks
I made some muffins because I was in the mood for baking. I didn't use a recipe but the ingredients were: wholemeal flour, bran flakes, baking soda, egg replacer (2 eggs), oil, water, chia seeds, chopped dried apricots, and breakfast juice. They didn't rise properly though and I'm not sure why. Also, I don't think they cooked properly in the middle. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Some Arnott's Cruskits with Philadelphia Cream Cheese.

I also cooked the Orgran bread mix (vegan) that I bought at the Organic Market and Cafe in Stirling.
It doesn't look anything like the packet (maybe I let it rise too much, it was a hot day) and it has a slightly odd but not unpleasant texture. Maybe all gluten free bread has this texture, kind of spongy, but anyway, it's still nice.

Recipe for pasta with lentil and tomato sauce

Serves 4


1 tbs olive oil
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 celery sticks, trimmed and diced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 cup dried brown lentils
400g tin chopped tomatoes
2.5 cups water (though you may need to add more during cooking)
2 tbs tomato paste
1 tbs dried oregano
2 tbs chopped fresh parsley
Black pepper to taste
Enough cooked pasta for everyone! Egg-free pasta for a vegan meal.


1. Heat oil in a large saucepan. Saute carrots, celery, and onion for 5 minutes or until vegetables are tender.


2. Add lentils, tomatoes, tomato paste, and water. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat. Simmer for 40 to 45 minutes or until lentils are tender but still hold their shape (if you need more liquid, add water as needed).


3. Stir in oregano and pepper. Serve sauce over hot pasta.

This is a bad photo, it looks much better than this!
Happy eating :)

Thursday, January 26

Recipe for butterbeer

To all you other Harry Potter fans out there, how many times have you wished that you could curl up with one of the books and a nice warm glass (or mug) of butterbeer? Well now you can! Here's how to make this delicious specialty of the Three Broomsticks.

Firstly, to make the butterscotch sauce (makes 330ml/1 1/3 cup):
160 ml (2/3 cup) thin cream
155g (3/4 cup firmly packed) brown sugar
50g (2 1/2 tbs) butter
2 tsp vanilla essence

1. Place all ingredients into a heavy-based saucepan, stir over medium heat for 5 minutes or until well combined.

2. Increase heat to high and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, stirring often, for 5 minutes or until the sauce thickens. This can either be set aside at room temperature for use later or can be used straight away to...

Secondly, make the butterbeer (makes 2 small serves):
1 cup soda water
1/2 cup butterscotch sauce
1/2 tbs butter

1. Measure butterscotch sauce and butter into a microwave safe measuring jug. Microwave on high for 1-1.5 minutes, or until the syrup is bubbly and the butter is completely incorporated.

2. Stir and cool for 30 seconds, then slowly mix in soda. Mixture will fizz quite a bit.

3. Serve in coffee mugs or glasses while warm.


Happy eating :)

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Breakfast
For a special treat, I took my little sister for breakfast at McDonald's. I had a bananaberry Bash Smoothie,


two hash browns and an English muffin with strawberry jam (vegan). A google image search tells me that these looked something like this:


Then again, going by google image search, they may have looked something like this:

McDonald's hash brown

McDonald's English muffin with strawberry jam

To be honest, I don't really remember because I was too busy stuffing my face with two of these four options given by the all-knowing and reliable google.

Dinner
We had dinner at my mum's house, Indian take-away. I had daal and rice with a plain roti but for some reason blogspot wants to turn the photo sideways so I'm not going to upload it. I also had a papadum that looked like it was screaming. It was slightly off-putting.

Snacks
Me, Jeff, and my sister made Butterbeer, straight from Harry Potter! Mmm! The recipe can be found here.

I also had two Arnott's Cruskits (vegan),

And a Smooze ice block (vegan).

Tuesday 24 January 2012

Let's just pretend this day never happened, dear readers, it never happened.

Monday 23 January 2012

Breakfast
Kelloggs Just Right.

Lunch
A margharita pizza that I whipped up before work.

Dinner
I was taken out for dinner and a movie and we ate at Chopstix on Rundle Street. I had Char Kway Teow with vegetables and tofu and a gin and tonic.

Monday, January 23

Sunday 22 January 2012

Breakfast
Fruit salad with Soyatoo! whipped cream (vegan). This whipped cream is delicious! It's so much better than dairy whipped cream!

Lunch
My grandmother was having a Nutrimetics party so I ate lots of finger food there. I had:

Lots of tomato and cheese scrolls (tomato paste, cheese, and puff pastry),

scones with jam and cream,

and some lamingtons.


Dinner
A tin of Heinz Classic Minestrone soup. It looks pretty much like it does on the tin but a bit less restaurant style and a bit more tinned soup style.

Snacks
After dinner I had some Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate.

Sunday, January 22

Fish sauce, get out of my life!

While writing my previous blog, I was going to include The Goods Fleurieu Fine Foods Spicy Roasted Pumpkin Dip which I tried at the Stirling Organic Market and Cafe and consequently bought because it was so delicious. Before I blogged about it, I checked the ingredients to see if it was vegan. IT HAS FISH SAUCE IN IT. Just like my longed-for dinner of Sun Rice Thai Vegetable Curry with Tofu and Jasmine Rice that was so cruelly snatched away from me last night because of fish sauce and shrimp paste, now the dip I was really looking forward to eating has fish sauce in it!

Fish sauce! Why do you have to be in everything?! All you do is add some saltiness anyway, you know what else can do that? SALT! Get out of my food and stop ruining my eating dreams!

Here is a picture of the dip. Don't buy it! Sneaky killers lurk within!


Happy eating :)

Adventures at The Organic Market and Cafe at Stirling

Yesterday my Mum and I went for a drive into the Adelaide Hills to Stirling, which is a lovely town. We walked under the beautiful shady trees and window shopped before going to The Organic Market and Cafe for afternoon tea. This is one of our favourite shops. My Mum very kindly gave me a spending allowance of $100! We had lots of fun looking at all the beautiful foods and other products and indulging in some retail therapy.

But before I go on to what I bought, I'll tell you more about the shop. It is sort of divided into a fruit and vegetable shop, grocery shop, and cafe. At the fruit and vegetable and grocery counter, they also sell cakes and pastries, many of which are vegan. They do also sell meat, eggs, and dairy, which some people may not like but they are not a vegan or vegetarian shop, they are an organic shop so that is understandable. Being an organic shop, everything is of course, organic and made with organic ingredients. As well as food, the shop also sells toiletries and baby products (none of which I believe are tested on animals), cleaning products (again, I believe not tested on animals), supplements (*eye-roll*), and natural medicines and therapies. If you live in the Adelaide area I highly recommend you visit this shop!

So, what did I buy? Well, I decided to buy things that either I had never tried, or special treats that I would not usually buy for myself as I cannot justify the expense to our household budget. Here are some of the vegan foods that I bought:

1. Tartex Original. Tartex is kind of like pate, but not made out of livers (eww). I can't describe it's flavour but I can say that it is yummy. It is also available in other flavours.

2. Orgran Gluten Free Bread Mix. For perhaps the last week I have had an urge to bake bread. I've never made bread before and I don't even know what ingredients I'd need. Then I saw this bread mix and I thought, 'add water and oil? I can do that!'. As you can see from the packet, this bread is free from everything. I'm intrigued to see how it turns out.

3. Madhava Amber Agave Nectar. You may have noticed from my blog that I am interested in veganism. Indeed, I am interested in becoming vegan. I've been wanting to try agave nectar for some time. For those who are not familiar with vegan food, agave nectar is commonly used to replace honey. It can also be used as a low-calorie sugar alternative, as the back of the bottle says, "1.4x as sweeter than sugar - use less, save calories!". I tasted some and I don't know what I expected but what I tasted wasn't it. I found it had a slightly metallic taste but having said that it definitely wasn't unpleasant. I will be eating more.

4. Vege Bears Pastilles. I have had actual Vege Bears before and they are additively delicious, the pastilles are too. These won't last long!

5. Lentilicious Coconut Fusion quick cook lentil side dish. Call me vegetarian, but I love lentils. The prospect of a fast-foodish version of this lovely legume was too much to pass up. And it's coconut flavour. I'm thinking of having it with some steamed vegies.



6.The Redwood Co Gourmet Meat Free Fish Style Fingers. I had these for dinner last night and they were nice. They don't taste like fish, which I think is a good thing, but they have the flaky texture of fish. I bet children would love them. You only get 6 in a packet though.

7. Cheezly Soy Free Style Cheese. As I said before, I am very interested in becoming vegan. The thing that is stopping me is dairy. I love dairy and I have tried a couple of brands of vegan cheese and I have tried vegan yogurt and...I just hate them! I know it is selfish of me but I cannot bring myself to go vegan because the dairy is revolting and I can't live my life without cheese. I have read in the Internet though, that Cheezly is the best brand of vegan cheese. I decided to give it a go. I couldn't bring myself to try soy cheese though, after my past bad experiences, so I went for the soy free type. It probably tastes worse than the soy ones but I was afraid! I'm still afraid. It's still sitting in my fridge looking at me. I will try it. Tomorrow. Or maybe the day after...

8. Soyatoo! Soy Whip. Another dairy alternative, this is soy whipped cream. After previously discussed bad experiences with vegan dairy products, I was scared to try this too (but not as scared as I am about the cheese). Soyatoo! is another brand that the Internet tells me is very good. I put a bit on a spoon this morning. It sure looked great. I ate a little bit and...it was great! I love this stuff! It's so sweet and delicious! It's much better than ordinary whipped cream.

9. Life Free From Dairy Free Parmazano. I have been wanting to get my hands on this for some time as it seems that this is the only way to get rennet-free parmesan cheese that you don't have to grate. I am looking forward to trying it. It doesn't even need refrigerating.

10. St Claire's Organic Throat Soothers. My lovely mum knew that I had a sore throat and she bought me these. They don't look very appetizing but they sure are tasty!

Happy eating :)

Saturday 21 January 2012

Breakfast
Fruit salad (vegan).

Lunch?
I don't know if you would really call it lunch, it was more a 1pm snack so that I didn't pass out in the car driving into the hills with Mum for a walk and afternoon tea. I really need to stop myself when I'm getting really into something and make myself eat, in this case Wii Fit. Anyway, I had Nuttelex and Vegemite on toast (vegan).

Dinner
I was looking forward to a quick and easy microwave meal in the form of Sun Rice Thai Vegetable Curry. I looked at the ingredients to see if it was vegan for the purposes of this blog and found that it contains fish sauce and shrimp paste! This goes to show that even after 5 years of being vegetarian, you still can't always pick which products are going to have sneaky killers in them, even those that look so vegetarian like this one. The moral of this story is, check your labels. I now paid money for food I won't eat. Take a look at this packet, and avoid it.

After the sad experience of having my much awaited dinner snatched away by sea-kitten killers, I had a bit of difficulty thinking of an alternative, missing ingredients, not enough time, etc. I finally settled to try two things I've never had before. One was some sort of quick cook quinoa lime and thyme flavoured side dish that I got from Coles (threw the packet in the bin, next time I'll let you know the brand), and the other was The Redwood Co Gourmet Meat Free Fish Style Fingers which I got from The Organic Market and Cafe at Stirling. I had these with a very boring green salad that consisted of mixed lettuce and cucumber. However, it was a very tasty dinner. I'm still undecided as to whether I liked the lime and thyme quinoa side dish or not, I think I will need another tasting. The 'fish fingers' didn't taste like fish, they tasted more like Fry's Vegetarian Crumbed Schnitzels but had the flaky texture of fish. They were pretty tasty. This meal was vegan :)

Snacks
We had afternoon tea at The Organic Market and Cafe in Stirling which is an awesome shop. They sell lots of vegan groceries, cakes, pasties etc as well as lots of free-from foods. And, of course, everything is organic. The shop consists of a fruit and vegetable section, grocery section, and cafe. The grocery section is great and has lots of tubs and barrels full of different flours, legumes, etc and you can make your own peanut butter there. They also sell organic alcohol. However, they do sell meat, dairy, etc as well so some people may not like that. At the cafe I had a chocolate fudge brownie that had icing sugar on the top, and a pot of jasmine tea. I was so caught up in the atmosphere of such a lovely day though that I forgot to take a photo so instead, here is another of my artistic drawings.

Saturday, January 21

Friday 20 January 2012

I spent almost the whole day working on an essay so I didn't eat much as I was too focused.

Breakfast
Uncle Toby's Honey Oats.

Lunch
Eight Arnott's Original Cruskits made into four sandwiches with Nuttelex, Cheese, and Vegemite.


Dinner
I was so exhausted after studying that Jeff made me dinner. And I was so brain dead that I forgot to take a photo! But I feel bad because I have been forgetting a lot lately. So here's a drawing of my Coles Organic Spaghetti with Leggos Stir Through Tomato and Garlic with Red Wine Sauce, accompanied by Coles Garlic Bread.
Ok so maybe the bowl wasn't that big and the bread wasn't that small, anyway, I never said it was a realistic drawing. This is a completely vegan meal as Coles Organic Spaghetti has no egg and Coles Garlic Bread uses margarine, not butter. Yay for Coles!

Snacks
I had a handful of grapes to give me some energy while I was studying (vegan, obviously).

I also had a bowl of fleshly made fruit salad after coming home from a walk (vegan). We used granny smith apples, yellow nectarines, seedless red grapes, watermelon, and 'sweet melon' which actually tastes weirdly smokey, I don't recommend it. Then we squirted a bit of Berri Lemon Juice over the top so it will keep for a few days in the fridge without going brown. It was delicious and so cool and refreshing after a hot day.