Thanks everyone!

Thanks for letting me rant in the last post, it felt good just getting that crap off my chest.

And it felt even better having lots of new places to try and ideas with all of your awesome responses.

I'm feeling a lot more confident about getting it all done, so a massive thank you to you all, you all rock!

Btw, I've already found a new ring.

And Happy New Year!

Food posts to recommence soon.

Arrrghhhhh

What was I thinking planning a wedding party (albeit a casual nontraditional party) right in the middle of the last 6 months of my thesis (hopefully!) and the crazy festive and socialisation period with new years eve, BBQs, parties and festivals everywhere. Also note to self: yes do it yourself parties save you money they also leave way too many decisions and responsibilities with us. I'm discovered that i'm not a big fan on party planning and much prefer just going to other peoples parties!

I think both Mr T and I have been a little too laid back up until this point and we woke up after xmas (which was quite distracting) and thought SHIT it's less than a month and we have done NOTHING and between all of the parties and deadlines for my thesis and All Tomorrow Parties (festival in Mount Bulla) and both of us being back at work we don't actually have that much time to do everything.

Things I need to find, but that are proving to be not that easy and time consuming, and so I'm throwing out to the blogworld to possibly help with:

* CHEAP biodegradgble cutlery sets (i found plates yay)
* finding cute recyled napkins (ie: not brown-ish ones)
* hiring cheap tables and chairs
* finding a ring that I like and actually want to wear all the time and that is not environmentally or socially evil and if made locally. Damn eg et al for being closed.
* choosing flowers to decorate with (I could easily go without flowers and am not having a bouquet but it's my friend contribution). I'm not really into flowers but know that I DON"T want roses. Anyone know any cute small-ish flowers? I'm clueless!
* finding cheap vegan wine that everyone will like
* choosing to make something that will feed 70 (including some really big eaters) or so people and that omni's will like
* finding the biggest food mosquito net to cover lots of food
* finding somewhere to hire large speakers etc
* finding cheap cute vegan silver (or white if it has to be) shoes with a tiny bit of a heel because I can't walk in high heels
* helping Mr T to choose lots of music that most people will like and hopefully dance too

I'm sure there is more that I can't think of right now because my brain is dead from working on my thesis for over 12 hours straight. Thanks for letting me rant!

Truffles

So apparently making several dishes for xmas day and last minute wrapping wasn't enough for me. I stupidly decided to make not one but three types of truffles and box them as extra gifts for all of my family on xmas eve. Instead of going with my tried and tested truffle recipe, I decided to explore others.

First I went with should you eat that's peanut butter truffles which I think would have been perfect if I used crunchy peanut butter and NOT used sweet williams 'milk' chocolate. It has an obviously soy taste that lingers even after you add the other ingredients. Still out of the three types of truffles these ones were the easiest to work with since the mixture is less liquidy. I think if I used dark chocolate they would have probably tasted better than the oreo peanut butter truffle version I made last time.

Next I followed Vegan chef's recipe for very easy vegan truffles and divided the mixture into two. The first batch was just plain white chocolate. I was going to coat them in shredded coconut but it sucked so decided to just coat it in white chocolate. I was pretty happy with these.

The second batch also contained white chocolate and I decided I wanted a raspberry flavour. There are quite a few under-aged kids in my fam so I couldn't just add liquor though, so I stupidly decided to add raspberry jam (st dalfour expensive sugar free jam mind you). I added little by little until I could taste it and I ended up having to use a whole jar. Then of course there was too much liquid and they were too soft, so I added in one and half packets of oreos. I then rolled them in ground oreos. These were still too soft though and didn't keep there round shape at all. Also the jam contained raspberry seeds which were slightly annoying. These were probably my family's fav. It's strange that my accidental truffle that went wrong in several ways was their fav. To say thank you for a friend, I decided to use the remainder mix to make into balls and coat in white choc, which overpowers the flavour a little but keeps much better shape and texture.

Anyway this is my very public reminder to myself to not make truffles for a very long time. They take too long and I don't have the patience for the constant rolling into small balls. They especially shouldn't be done the night before xmas when you have a thousand other things to do.



Pics were taken with a camera phone because my camera battery died.

Correction

Turns out Mr T was wrong about free public transport on boxing day. It is however free on new years day.

He apologies for any inconvenience.

Dianne's cheezy broccoli/cauliflower

I made it again for xmas day and Dianne gave it the tick of approval, so here's the recipe as promised. I can't believe how easy it is, although it's not healthy. I tried reducing the margarine but it didn't work. My mother normally adds moroccan spice mix and vegie salt both but I substituted other spices because I don't have them.

1 large broccoli
1/2 large cauliflower
2 large tablespoons (more like scoops) of margarine
3 tablespoons of flour
3 cups of soy milk
pinch caynenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon of cumin
1 1/2 - 2 teaspoons of chicken style stock (I love this stuff)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Steam or boil cauliflower and broccoli until tender when pierced with a fork. Put to the side.

In a non stick frypan add the margarine and melt, then add the flour. Stir and cook over med heat for a couple of minutes.




Then add herbs and stock and add half a cup of the soymilk and stir it together until the flour/marg mixture absorbs the soy milk. Continue to stir and add the rest of the soymilk half a cup at a time until it is gone. Taste at this point to ensure it doesn't taste like soymilk and is full of flavour. If not, add more spices/stock. Bring it to a stimmer for about 5 minutes until it resembles a very thick paste, kind of like this (although the pictures doesn't really show it but it changes appearance from a normal looking sauce to a glue like texture).




Pour sauce over broccoli/cauliflower and bake for 20-30 minutes.

(This is a precooked pic).


Next up: truffle recipes.

Vline day trips?

On boxing day vline and all transport is FREE!

So Mr T and I are thinking about doing a day trip to take advantage of it, the question is where should we visit? Any ideas? suggestions?

Xmas Potluck

Claire and Reece hosted the latest potluck at their place and it was awesome. I however was much more of a eater than a food blogger and forgot to take pics of many of the dishes but I can share what we made and I'm sure some of the other bloggers will post their pics. I made not one but 2 dishes this time.

The first dish was 'Dianne's broccoli with white sauce'. My mum (Dianne) veganised her version a while ago but unfortunately just makes it up each time and never writes down what she does so I really pleased to come up with something that tasted almost as good with super vague instructions. I will remake it for xmas and write down as I go and then post the recipe.



I also made candy cane cookies following eat me, delicious's recipe for candy cane bark and Isa's recipe for chocolate chip cookies. The cookies took triple the time that the recipe asked for but that's because my oven sucks and were still soft, thankfully I like soft cookies. They were however a little too oily but that may have been because I made the dough and then refrigerated it for a few days. I was however happy with the taste.




Mr T made his signature dish. The bean balls from veganomonican with a twist, he used orange rind instead of lemon which tastes even better in my opinion and I forgot to to get a pic sorry.

Anyway on to the other dishes. I didn't get pictures of the svaoury dishes because I was starving but I can tell you that Erin made the meatloaf from Real Food Daily, Claire made up her own recipe for meatloaf, Rachel made a tuna bake, Recce made vegetarian dim sims/dumplings, and Rebecca made sausage rolls. I did however get pictures of the sweets:

Rebecca made Churros



Craig made peanut butter and banana springrolls with chocolate sauce



Claire's friend (whose name I have forgot) made white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies



Lisa made a nobake cake with coconut,cashews and with a couscous base.

Happy foods

You know how some foods make you happy: chocolate, mashed potatoes with gravy, cupcakes etc. Well I have another food to add to that list: Onion Rings.




These are the Coles onion rings which paired with a tiny bit of salt and tartare sauce are a match made in heaven. I can't wait to try the Aldi onion rings and compare them.

Candy cane cookies

I had every intention of bringing some baked good to the pizza party and so decided to follow this recipe for chocolate chip candy cane cookies. Unfortunately despite following the direction I ended up with dry dough that wouldn't stick enough to make into small balls, so I added a bit more egg replacer and put them in the oven and they were way too soft. I blame the egg replacer, I don't trust it! It's such a pity because the candy canes softened in the cookies and were a great slightly soft texture and they actually tasted great just texture wise sucked. I left them at home and thought I would try again, but no matter how long they baked they will still too soft.

More vegan pizza options in the west?

On Sunday a large group of people(including lots of veg*n bloggers) went to Emily's to sample pizza from a new pizza place which has both vegan cheese and pepperoni. I had one piece of each of these:


Roast veg pizza which I believe is called vegie delight


Veg one with the lot plus pineapple


Cherry tomato and basil pizza


Garlic pizza


Veg pepperoni pizza

So what were they like? As a regular eater of Plush I was pleased to see they were super generous with the cheezly. The bases were wholemeal and remind me a little of the pita pizzas that Mr T and I regularly make. The topics were not quite as unique as plush toppings and were just like regular pizza toppings, only vegan. It was all delicious though and I am sure that I will be back for more again and again. I can't decide what my fav is, it's a toss up between the simple cherry tomato and basil pizza and the one with everything. Look out for proper blog posts from the usual veg bloggers and some not so blurry pics.

We also enjoyed cookies from Emily, cupcakes from Rachel and cherries from Lisa but I forgot to take pics.

Eat Pizza
44 Raleigh Rd
9317 7977
Website

Edgars Mission

On sat a small group of us went to Edgar's Mission. It was AMAZING! I sadly didn't take any pictures but am hoping that either Caroline or Theresa will blog with their pictures. Pam took us around to meet all of the animals and we fed and patted them and she told us about their stories and personalities. I think Pam is just amazing looking after all of those animals mostly by herself. It was so great to see all the animals and getting alone so well. She as well as the animals are so inspiring. I strongly encourage you to support Edgar's Mission however you can. There is carols by barnlight this sat. Also, if you are looking for christmas or birthday gifts you can get the animal lover in your life a best buddy with one of the animals for a year. You get a large photo, quarterly updates and you can visit it and the prices vary depending on the animal. Don't tell the other animals but I think Timmmy was my fav. Although one word or warning if you plan on visiting make sure you bring lots of weetbixs and be aware of the sheep they will surround you all wanting some and then you might not have any left for the poor cows or horses.

Bodhi

I went to and blogged about Bodhi quite a while ago and I kind of forgot about it until recently. We went to Bodhi several weeks ago and discovered that there were new owners, in fact they had only been managing the cafe for 2 weeks. We had to explain what vegan meant but they were quite nice and the food was great. They also explained that they don't use MSG which is great.

We shared tasty spring rolls, and wontons:



I had some longan wolfberry tea, which was sweet and tasty and the staff and Mr T informed me that is supposed to 'be good for women'(translation: it's good for menstruation issues):




This was the mushroom don (which the mushroom fans raved about) and the ginger duck which was probably my fav:



And then we has some tasty noodles with a smoky flavour but i can't remember what they were called.


One of my favourite things about Bodhi besides the food and their teas is the cute decor and 'zen' feel about the place:



I want to go back and try their new menu that they have probably introduced by now.