Pre potluck ride

So a group of decided on sat the day before a potluck to do a group ride to st kilda, but it was super windy so instead just rode to the vic market and back. We wanted to go to somewhere for lunch and Mr T remembered seeing in market lane a place selling vegan and gluten free crepes called Le Triskel Creperie. We decided to give it a go.

They did have vegan crepes, which is great but they were pretty disappointing. Cindy had a non vegan crepe and said that the actual crepe itself was a lot drier than their her non vegan one, I suspect that they use buckwheat flour instead of regular flour. For savoury options, they only had one that could be made vegan which was tomato, mushroom and spinach, not so great though for tomato hating Craig. It was just dry and not overly tasty. They offered a fair few sweet ones that could be adapted though so I had a banana, almond and maple syrup one. Despite the maple syrup it was also a bit dry and disappointing but did look quite cute :


I appreciate the effort they made in making vegan ones, but not sure if the cafe realised that vegan doesn't have to mean dry and boring crepes.

We then went to casa del gelato which I adore, I seriously can't say enough good things about that place. I can see myself spending lots of time there this summer. They have awesome creamy soy flavours like hazelnut, pistachio, coffee, chocolate, natural (which is vanilla-ish) and bachi. Also all of the fruit flavours (except for banana) are vegan, it's so great to have non fruit flavours to choose from. I had bachi, hazelnut and passionfruit in a cone, and Mr T had pear, natural and pistachio:

For the potluck today, I decided to leave it to one of the many other bloggers who attended to post about and take pics. I made the chorizo sausages from vegan brunch but made a few changes, I decided to use refried beans instead of mashed pinto beans, added a tiny bit of liquid smoke because I run out of smoked paprika and used sage powder even though the recipe asked for dry rubbed sage because I couldn't find dry rubbed sage. I think that refried beans substitution may have contributed to the softness, but they were pretty tasty. I look forward to trying the other ones.

Mr T made kiwi sorbet which was yummy but we reallied half way through that we are a missing a piece of our ice cream maker so it wasn't as smooth as it should be.

Casa del Gelato
163 Lygon St Carlton
Daily 12:00pm-12am
Tel: (03) 9347-0220

Best scrambled tofu!

I've blogged about bomb cafe before, it's this tiny cute cafe that sells two vegan breakfast options. This time we both had scrambled tofu because it rocks. It has caramelised onion in it and is slightly sweet, peppery and cheap too at either $7.50 or $9.50. Mr T had mushrooms and fried potatoes on the side of his. The sour dough bread is chewy, hard to cut and delicious.

Mr T and I both agree that is the best scrambled tofu we have ever had. Don't get me wrong, I love the scrambled tofu at soul food too, but this is slightly tastier and cheaper too.

I don't know how this place doesn't get blogged about more.

Bomb Cafe
229 Johnston St
Abbotsford
9486 0699


Oh and I haven't been putting the aussie mofo symbol in all my posts so here is it again :-)

Ezard

For Mr T's birthday I took him to Ezard for dinner, we had the pre theatre tasting menu. It was AMAZING and well worth it's super high prize. My fav dining experience ever, although apart from press club, I haven't had many fine dining experiences.

We went with my brother and his girlfriend who are omni's and had separate menus but also really enjoyed it.

It was a little hard to take pictures, because we didn't want to use the flash and didn't want to be obvious about it, so some are quite bad. Also my descriptions are not the greatest because I didn't bring a notepad and the descriptions were all quite lengthy with descriptions like: "oyster mushrooms with mirin/soy/plum wine sauce infused with x y and z and topped with x y and z". But hopefully you get the point.

We had bread with olive oil, ground szechuan peppers, a mixture of sugar/lime and chilli, and a non vegan seaweed/fish one. It made me decide that I have to get my hands on some szechuan peppers.


We then had rhubarb, beetroot, grapefruit with salsa verde. I normally hate grapefruit but this was not sour at all.


We then had silken tofu in a red miso broth with some sort of melt in your mouth seaweed and sesame seeds. I've had lots of miso before, but this was hands down the best miso ever.


Then we had a warm artichoke salad with fennel. Why is it that I only like fresh fennel in fancy restaurants?


Then followed by oyster mushrooms in a plum wine/mirin/soy sauce that was sweet and savoury and so addictive which I mopped up like a crazy person with my bread.



Dessert was the only thing I was slightly disappointed with because I thought sorbet was just too easy, but it was delicious. We had mandarin/orange sorbet and raspberry sorbet with fancy dried fruit on top.



About half way through I started to worry that I might actually be hungry afterwards, but the meals got progressively bigger and by the end I was full, Mr T on the other hand wanted a stop at casa del gelato on the way home, but he's got a massive appetite. I really can't name a favourite dish, but Mr T said the oyster mushrooms in plum wine sauce was his favourite.

I really could get used to this type of fine dining, it's a pity my budget won't allow it.

Slow cooker

My family gave Mr T a slow cooker for his birthday and mother drove to Frankston from the west to get what appears to be the only copy of the simple little vegan slow cooker book in Melbourne.

We didn't waste anytime putting it to work and made the tofu in pumpkin seed sauce from the book. Which we put in mountain bread with nacho cheezly, sour cream, with avocado and lettuce. The sauce itself was a bit bland, although i'm not sure if it that is because I used regular pumpkin instead of pumpkin puree, does pumpin puree in the US have something added to it? I also didn't put a small can of chillis in it, I put a capscium and chilli powder in it instead.





The slow cooker itself though was so nice to use, I loved not having to stir or check on it and the warmer function which kept it warm while we waited for friends to arrive for dinner.

Does anyone have the cookbook or know of any awesome slow cooker recipes?

We recently rode to ceres for breakfast. Ceres is positioned right next to the gorgeous merri creek bike track.
Ceres stands for center for education and research on environmental strategies. It is pronounced "series". There is a cafe there, small nursery, market on sat, community garden and much more. It really does feel a lot like a hippy place, but I love it.

Anyway this is for Aussie/NZ vegan mofo (month of food) so I better get to the food. We shared an almond muffin:


Pumpkin, tofu and miso rolland vegan breakfast which contained toast, mushrooms, spinach, smoked tofu, baked beans, and beetroot and chili relish. The smoked tofu was definitely my fav part, but I really enjoyed the beetroot relish too.


It was all delicious, and I especially enjoyed the vegan breakfast but at $17 it's pretty expensive for breakfast and really not that big for it's price.

Ceres cafe
Corner roberts and stewarts st
East brunswick
9387 2609
www