Tag Archives: Vegan MoFo 2013

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So Long Vegan MoFo 2013! And Random What-I-ates

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Ehhhh welll it’s no secret my attempt at vegan MoFo this year was rather slack.  So many plans, so many last minute spanners in the works that just saw my MoFo plans fizzle out.  I did enjoy MoFo though because I discovered Australian blogs I hadn’t read before and I’ve enjoyed every single one.

Melbourne, being Melbourne, has really given us the four seasons in one day recently.  We’ve had some beautiful spring days and crazy winds last night causing power outages and all sorts of annoyances.  At least it’s good kite flying weather and Husband is a kite flying expert.  Me, I do the running around stupidly in a circle getting the string all wound up.

Okay, time to put on my food face.  Another gush-worthy recipe I’ve mentioned before is Dreena Burton’s BBQ Sunflower Tofu which Arthur loves.  I make a batch of this for him and he asks for seconds.  He likes the little marinadey bits:

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I’ve been making the Lemon Meringue Pie smoothie from ‘Eat Raw, Eat Well’.  Yep, this tastes as good as it sounds:

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Aaaand here’s my big flop.  It’s a raw banana pie from Brendan Brazier’s ‘Thrive’ book.  I don’t know what I did wrong, but my base was really crumbly and I’m sure I followed the recipe.  The filling part was good but I should have taken more care.  I didn’t make the topping but I had some cashew cream and used that.  It was okay but I found the taste of sunflower seeds a little much.  i would make it again though with some little changes.  And take a much better photo:

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I made another batch of Singapore Style Noodles I blogged about previously.  This time I used mock duck (made from wheat, with a bbq flavour) and tofu puffs:

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I’ve been making the Raised Waffles recipe from Isa’s ‘Vegan Brunch’.  Arthur really likes these, though I prefer the cornbread waffles.  Still, it’s fun making this yeast version.  I plopped some coconut cream on mine and coconut sugar.  Yes, this was the last-of-the-batter waffle:

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During the week I just forgot to take photos.  Or I did take some photos of stuff and deleted them somehow.  Now I will just have to make citrus coconut pie all over again!  See you then 😉

Related posts:

  1. Vegan MoFo 2013: Day 1 is a Bit of a Fail, Theme Wise…
  2. Vegan MoFo 2013: Day 6. Where Veganopoulous Starts Losing The Plot.
  3. Vegan MoFo Day 8: Goodbye Porpoise Spit!
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Gluten Free Sweet Potato Gnocchi from Cupcake Kitteh

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Ahhh gnocchi.  I have always had a love-hate relationship with these little balls of goodness-badness.  Goodnes, because they are lovely with a taste sauce.  Badness, because traditional gnocchi often results in feeling like I have lead balls in my stomach and I feel blergh.

I’m subscribed to Cupcake Kitteh‘s blog and I squealed with excitement when I saw Mandee post this recipe for gluten free sweet potato gnocchi.  I love sweet potato, I had lots of sweet potato so that was what I chose to make for dinner a couple of days ago.

I first made a few small proper gnocchi sized balls with the fork marks as a test because I was worried the mixture was too soft.  I needn’t have worried as they turned out fine, especially pan fried in a little oil.

Then the laziness crept in and took over… look, jumbo gnocchi:

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These were great!  I held my breath when the kids tried some.  Arthur’s rating was “38% goodness” so at least I can use this recipe as a base.  Husband was out for dinner and didn’t have any.  DeeW was not a fan but I didn’t expect her to be as she doesn’t like this kind of texture.

This is such a simple recipe and one I will make again with a really nice pesto  🙂

Related posts:

  1. Vegan MoFo 2013: Day 7. Australia Votes!
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Sort of a MoFo Post, But Really More About Gopal’s Pure Vegetarian Restaurant, Melbourne

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You guys, I’ve really been kinda struggling finding the time and motivation to do MoFo-y blog posts.  Lately I’ve had lots of last minute “let’s go out to eat” invitations, or last minute visits somewhere where I’m piled up with food when I leave.  I’m not complaining but it means I haven’t done any cooking or raw food prep of my own, and that’s what my theme was supposed to be.  Sooooo I’m a-thinkin’ that MoFo here on my blog has been a bit of a bust.  Not only that but I see so many fantastic look meals on other MoFo blogs and I end up making those instead of the stuff I had planned.

So today was one of those fly by the seat of my greedy pants kinda food days.  I had to go in to the city and was right near Gopal’s.  I’ve never been there and it’s a bit of an institution.  So when 11am arrived (their opening time) I was THERE.  At the bottom of the stairs:

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The food on offer is all inside a bain marie style set up.  I went for the ‘vegan special’ which was two veg dishes + rice or roti+ choice of salad + juice + dessert.  All for $10.50 and let me tell you this was a big serving:

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The salad was a raw beetroot and carrot (I said no to the dressing offered) and was quite nice and I’m usually not a beetroot fan.  The two veg dishes were good (one had tofu, the other chickpeas) but nothing utterly amazing however to me the appeal of a place like Gopal’s is that the food is served like you’re in someone’s home, just plopped on the plate all homely like.  I’m glad the rice was brown rice though I found myself thinking that I might get the roti instead next time (and there will be a next time!):

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My juice was actually a lemon mint kind of lemonady drink which was lovely and refreshing.  Window shot:

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Dessert was sago pudding with some sliced banana and grapes inside it.  I do admit when this was given to me I felt all ohhh… you mean dessert isn’t one of these lovely looking sweet treats in the counter display?  You know, disappointed-face.  But I was very pleasantly surprised with the sago pudding as it’s something I’ve never been that interested in, but with the fruit mixed in, it was good:

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Dork that I am, I forgot AGAIN to take a photo of the outside from the street. Here’s an inside shot though:

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I sat along the window bench and enjoyed the view and breathed a happy sigh about how much I love Melbourne… that means PHOTOS.  With my phone camera.  Enjoy!

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city2 Gopal’s Pure Vegetarian Restaurant is located at 139 Swanston Street up a lot of stairs.  Website here.

Related posts:

  1. Lunch at Enlightened Cuisine
  2. Lunch at Gopal’s: visit 2
  3. Dinner at Trippy Taco, Fitzroy
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Vegan MoFo 2013: Day 11 Mish Mash and a Visit to Williamstown

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So I’ve skipped days 9 and 10  (as in September 9th and 10th) and feel like I’ve fallen off the MoFo train.  I’m just too interested in the other MoFo recipes I’m bookmarking and can’t be bothered with my own theme!

One of the recipes I made was Singapore Style Noodles from Sid In The Kitchen.  Easy, delicious and reminded me of the Singapore Noodles my mum used to order from our local Chinese restaurant.  I am still on the hunt for a good curry powder mix as I think a great curry powder would take these noodles to the next level in my kitchen.  I used Keen’s curry powder:

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Now the rest of the fam aren’t doing MoFo and Arthur requested waffles so I made the Peanut Butter Waffles from ‘Vegan Brunch’.  I have a Belgian waffle maker and when I bought it I didn’t realise I’d need recipes for a Belgian waffle maker, as my previous waffle maker was one of those smaller heart shaped single serve irons.  My Belgian waffle maker cooks four big square waffles at a time which is much better for me as it reduces the nag time (as in “when is the next waffle going to be readddddyyyyyyyy”, which is me and not the kids).  This peanut butter waffles recipe wasn’t changed at all here though I did feel they were slightly too soft inside.  I cooked them at night so we could have them crisped in the toaster the next morning.  They were pretty nice, though the family requested I stick to my other recipe which is cornbread waffles from the same book. I say who cares when there’s maple syrup!

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This week, some tall ships sailed in to Williamstown, a residential suburb of Melbourne located by the bay.  There’s a marina and all those cafes and restaurants you’d expect from an area like this, with the pricey meals and ice cream to match.  Ditto for the houses.  Williamstown gets quite busy on the weekend as it is a lovely place to have lunch and stroll around, so the Veganopoulous clan always visit during the week when it’s nice and quiet.

Husband wanted pizza for lunch and the kids will never say no to that, so we went to La Porchetta which is your standard family friendly pizza pasta chain.  I was really hungry, decided to ignore my gluten free intentions and asked if the pizza bases were egg and dairy free.  I was told they were, so I got a vegetarian pizza without cheese.  It was okay but I was happy to be able to eat pizza with my kids as I usually sit and watch them all eat as I’m not a fan of veg pizza unless it’s more your gourmet posh stuff:

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After lunch we walked around looking at the ships:

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And then made our way back to the car.  In good time too, as it just started to rain.

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It’s now a stay-rugged-up-indoors kindof evening and that’s exactly what I plan on doing, with the assistance of this chap, Doctor Blake and his murder mysteries.  Though I find myself wanting to tear my hair out at the dreadful overacting of his co-star *cough* :

drblake

Related posts:

  1. Sort of a MoFo Post, But Really More About Gopal’s Pure Vegetarian Restaurant, Melbourne
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Vegan MoFo Day 8: Goodbye Porpoise Spit!

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Soooo… well I’m feeling ever so glum today with the horrible election result.  This is pretty much today’s face:

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I was really tempted to fall back to my comfort food of cornflakes sprinkled with raw sugar and chocolate powder and covered in scalding hot soy milk but that would have made for a boring MoFo post.  And I KNOW I would have sat there staring at the milk going around and around in the microwave like that brilliant scene in Muriel’s Wedding where the mum makes the tea in the microwave.  It was that kind of day.  Anyway, I got the leftover macadamia cream out of the fridge, whizzed it up with some dates and a little maple syrup to sweeten it and plopped it on top of a giant nectarine.  I love raw nut creams:

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Rather summer-holiday, don’t you think?  I had to avoid listening to news cos it ruined my tropical mood and made me look like this:

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But to keep with the theme of imagining I’m off on Hibiscus Island, faaaar away from the awful reality of our new prime minister, I made a juice from pineapple, strawberries, orange and fresh basil.  Then I decided to make it alcoholic and whiz it up with ice.  Then realised I didn’t know which of Husband’s bottles of alcohol are vegan.  He’s the drinks man, I rarely drink alcohol so I have never really bothered making a list.  So I just put the juice in a fancy glass and had it plain and… healthy:

fruitjuice

I have some busy days this week and not really sure how I’ll go MoFo-wise but so far I’m pleased that I’m having far more healthy foods than I have in the past few months.  I do enjoy eating raw but not when it’s cold.  I don’t think I’m ready to give up scalding hot cornflakes just yet.

Related posts:

  1. Vegan MoFo 2013: Day 1 is a Bit of a Fail, Theme Wise…
  2. Vegan MoFo 2013: Day 3’s Smoothie and Finally, MoFo Themed Meals
  3. Vegan MoFo 2013: Day 6. Where Veganopoulous Starts Losing The Plot.