Again I’ve fallen behind with making notes of what I’ve been eating. I’ve been kinda sorta ‘good’, and having some raw stuff but mostly in the form of smoothies and juices. I’ve found that when I make things that are a little more time consuming, I’m the only one that ends up eating them which is not exactly ideal if there are a lot of nuts involved. Plus once the cooler weather hits I turn in to one of those people who don’t like eating raw in cold weather!
One of my favourite smoothies is the Cake Batter Smoothie from Eat Raw Eat Well. It’s made with cashew milk, avocado, date, orange, lemon. I love this smoothie so much:
Husband and I were near Richmond again so we dropped in to Loving Hut for our usual. Husband gets the spring rolls. You can see in the photo they look like regular spring rolls, whereas our previous visits gave us the more puffed up lumpy bumpy pastry:
I was determined to try another dish but in the end I just felt like the tofu puff-veg curry again. I’ll get something different next time…
I made the cheesy-onion raw cauliflower popcorn in the dehydrator using this recipe at Little Vegan Bear. Caeli is right when she says these feel junky but without the junk! I just wish my family ate it but I’m not complaining that I get it all to myself:
My mum made a nice roasted eggplant dip and green beans with potato and carrot. Yes, that’s a chores list that says scrub toilets:
Mum also gave me some of the burghul she made and this made another hearty meal served up with grilled mushrooms:
I made up some lentil and bean ‘meat’ based on a recipe from Isa Does It though I added in some mushrooms. I had this during the week rolled up and pressed in my sandwich grill press thingy, or in a tortilla. I made Johanna’s Cauliflower Cheese Sauce with some minor modifications (like veg broth instead of soy milk, and I used nooch instead of tahini). I ended up putting more sauce on my plate so I could use the tortilla as a mop because this cauliflower sauce is yumz:
I made Moroccan Chickpea Burgers from Holy Cow! I liked them but the family are really, really fussy when it comes to burgers. As in, they don’t really eat them:
March 14th was Pi Day. I didn’t make anything on the day, but the day before I made a sortof pie in the form of an apple rhubarb crumble. I believe North American peeps call this a crisp:
I was mostly happy with the two person banquet at Gong de Lin recently (we were not served the baby corn soup) so when I got home I’d purchased another two person Scoopon. I took my sister to Gong de Lin last week and the soup came out straight away. We had the same entree of steamed dumplings and spring rolls, but these dumplings had a different filling than last time and were bigger too.
For our two main meals the sweet and sour mock pork came out but instead of the spicy mock chicken, we had a mushroom dish. I thought it was good taste wise but anything other than button shaped mushies make me nervous. My sister is braver than me in this respect and polished it off. The downside here is that we waited for rice to come out but none appeared. Flagging down the waitress was pointless because other tables were getting really impatient and beginning to call out. Besides, my sis and I were really full by this point that we said mehhh don’t worry about the rice:
I had talked up the dessert course T and I had last time. This time however, we were given the same ‘dumplings in clear broth’ though the broth again seemed to be water with sugar. As for the marble sized dumplings, I must report these were a massive let down. They were plain balls of unsweetened dough with no flavour. We ate one each then pushed it aside. Mega disappointing:
My sister and I walked around a bit to ease our full stomachs. We stopped in at the Organic Food and Wine Deli in Degraves Street for some cake. The vegan options were lemon poppyseed (my sister got that). I went for the chocolate cherry cake. Both tasted nice but were a little on the dry side. I took a photo of my sister’s slice of cake but it was too blurry (this photo isn’t much better):
I should point out The System my sister and I use. When we go out to eat, we never order the same thing. We pick two menu items we both like and we share. Husband doesn’t get this. He belongs to the school of “if you want something, just order it”. Alas, he hates it when I pick from his plate. In my defence though I must state that this ‘picking’ is always me taking a sample from his plate before I’ve used my cutlery and he’s welcome to try some of my meal. Ditto for my sister or others who follow The System. You don’t double dip of course. But Husband does not understand this amazing System.
My sister and I had gone in to the Manchester Unity building:
We got in the lift and were snapping photos of ceilings and so on then got told off by the people from some of the businesses there. Had we seen a ‘no photography’ sign we would have respected it. It’s silly they don’t have signs up, I know people who go around to old buildings like this snapping pics of the interiors.
Husband and I have been enjoying watching Veronica Mars. We had the final tv season put aside years ago and have just watched them all. We’re definitely going to watch the movie. I never thought I would enjoy a program set in high school (then college) but it’s a great show. I especially love the interaction between Veronica and her Dad, always fantastically played:
Another show we’re loving right now is Outrageous Fortune. OF is a show produced in New Zealand about ten years ago. I would love to work as a set or wardrobe stylist on a show like this. I burst out laughing when Pascalle wore the trashy white boots with her bridesmaid dress:
I swore I wouldn’t buy any more cookbooks… a blog I follow is Angela Liddon’s Oh She Glows. Angela has just released her Oh She Glows cookbook and my copy arrived today. Wheeee! I really liked her introduction and I’m looking forward to trying out some of the recipes as they all look brilliant. Each recipe has a photo and it’s a pleasure to read through. Another book that arrived is Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day by Tamasin Noyes and Celine Steen. I’ve had my eye on this one for ages but always said no because I wanted to avoid eating bread. But the truth is I do love a good sandwich and I’m not very creative when it comes to my own sandwiches. Plus some of the recipes in this book look fab.
I’ll leave you with one of my favourite songs from when I was young. One year in the early 80s, probably 1982, I received my first record: one of those compilation albums with a bunch of hits from that year. May I present Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five for your viewing pleasure!