Meal Planning Week 4: The Hideous Food Photography version

I was incredibly lazy last week when it came to food.  I didn’t plan a full menu again which of course meant our meals were nowhere near as vegietastic as I’d hoped!

One smoothie I like is made with banana, plant milk, oats, cinnamon and hemp protein.  This fills me up for a while.  I call it my ‘porridge smoothie’:

I made the Cauli-power Alfredo pasta sauce from Oh She Glows.  It was quite tasty, though I should have added more plant milk as it was far too thick (I didn’t follow the recipe thoroughly).  Or perhaps I could have added some vegetable stock.  Anyway, I was thinking that if it was really thick, perhaps it could serve as a kind of bechamel layer on a baked pasta or moussaka.  I’ll have to try that one day:

I found a packet of vegan rendang in the back of the pantry and cooked it up with some peas and coconut rice:

I made some filo parcels with a filling of chickpeas, walnuts and cooked brown rice.  The kids weren’t crazy about them but the next day Arthur asked for leftovers so I’d say they ended up being a winner for one child at least!

Quite a bit of fruit:

Husband had gone out to a shopping centre and called to ask if I wanted anything from the food court.  It was a hot day, I wasn’t in the mood to cook so I requested some Indian food.  The Indian food outlets at shopping centres often have a few vegan dishes.  My photo does not do it justice.  My photo does not do the plastic bag justice:

Arthur and I baked the Sweet Potato Blondies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.  As always, I significantly reduce the amount of sugar used:

Sunday was Australia Day.  Originally I had plans to take the family out to some of the free events going on, like the Government House Open Day.  But we had a late change of plans, a really late night and when Husband and I woke up we were way too tired.  We did stop at Mister Nice Guy’s Bake Shop on the way to visit my parents:

Mister Nice Guy’s made awesome Australia Day themed cupcakes (here are last year’s).  I got the Golden Gaytime, which the Bake Shop described as a “vanilla toffee swirl cake with caramel frosting, topped with chocolate and caramel ganache and sprinkled with honeycomb”.  Golden Gaytime is an icecream that has been around since I was a little girl and it was probably my favourite icecream-on-a-stick before I went vegan. So if something is ‘Golden Gaytime inspired’ I am THERE.  We also got the ANZAC biscuit inspired cupcake and a donut. Arthur got his usual cinnamon bun:

To finish off the week, Husband and I went out to dinner at Magic Mint Cafe in Moonee Ponds.  I got my usual veggie pakora for entree and the mixed vegetable curry for my main.  YUMZ:

It’s Wednesday here and I haven’t used a meal plan this week either! The weather has been urgh-hot again, though today is lovely so I might get some baking done, or meals that can last a few days.

Fingers crossed I’ll get back to meal planning for next week…

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A return to Magic Mint and some *wheeeeze* *huh?* funnies

* UPDATE March 23rd 2014:  We went to Magic Mint tonight and I decided to confirm again if the onion kulcha was vegan as the last couple of times they told me it was.  But when I googled recipes they all seemed to have dairy.  Anyway tonight I was told their onion kulcha has milk in it  😦  I’m hoping it didn’t the times I ordered it but well, it would explain the (TMI alert) Sneaky Dairy Poos.

 

Husband and I returned to Magic Mint in Moonee Ponds for a lovely meal.  Magic Mint always has great service, the food is good and I get to take leftovers home for breakfast.  So it’s a win on all fronts!

The first time we visited, I ordered the mixed veg curry.  On the second visit, I got the eggplant, potato and pea masala.  For this third visit I went back to the veg curry with coconut rice.  I ordered onion kulcha on the side but forgot to take a photo:

Husband and I are always happy with our visits to Magic Mint and it’s our go-to Indian restaurant.

Now on to the humour part of today’s broadcast.  I’m usually a bit slow catching up on all these funny clips and stories that float around the WWW so I’m guessing a lot of my readers have seen the following clip.  The “you have never seen a more inexplicable clip than this” really sums it up for me.  I swear I sat there in a state of utter confusion and speechlessness, with some laughter (hello Tonya Harding!) thrown in before going back to being utterly confused.  Enjoy!

http://sabotagetimes.com/funny/you-have-never-seen-a-more-inexplicable-clip-on-the-internet-than-this

Vegan MoFo 2013: Day 1 is a bit of a fail, theme wise…

It’s the first day of this year’s Vegan MoFo and my theme is the rather ridiculous ‘eat as much raw as possible but any cooked food is to be oil free and oh while I’m at it everything is gluten free too’.  I chose this theme because I have wanted to try oil free for a while, plus I need to be more disciplined with going gluten free and I want this to be an experiment to see how I feel overall.  I’ve blogged before about my short mostly-raw food trial making me feel and sleep fantastic and I’m very curious to see if I can have that again.  I’ve also stacked on a little weight and feeling blah about it.  Yep, when I do my aeroplane seatbelt up and notice my stomach flopping over the top of it, it’s time to re-think my eating and lack of aerobic activity.

Most days I have a smoothie or some kind of juice for breakfast but for MoFo I want to get back in to green juices daily.  My day 1 MoFo smoothie was made with frozen banana, peanuts, raw cacao powder (I put too much in by accident) and ground flax:

As we hadn’t gone shopping since returning home from our holiday, I made another smoothie for lunch.  This time, frozen bananas, oats, a date, non dairy milk and cinnamon.  I know I know, oats aren’t exactly gluten free but there was nothing else to eat and I wasn’t sure when we’d go shopping nor when I’d eat next:

Finally we went shopping and I loaded up on fresh produce.  I had a precooked dinner I’d made and frozen so that I wouldn’t have to cook for a few days after returning from Sydney.  Everything was set, then we dropped the kids off for a sleepover at my mum’s and then as it is Fathers Day here in Australia, I asked Husband what he’d like for dinner.  Aaand he suggested Magic Mint Cafe in Moonee Ponds, our go-to Indian restaurant. Aaaaaaaaaaand I got the veggie pakora which are, you know, deep fried in oil.  And my main of Aloo Gobi Mattar had oil in it. Aaaaand I got some stuffed naan as well which is… gluteny.  I supposed I can wriggle out of my day 1 fail by saying “BUT I said the food I cook would be oil free, I didn’t say anything about other people cooking for me so nyerrr”.  Plus my mum gave me some stuffed veggies she’d made for me and they’re cooked in oil.

Dinner at Magic Mint was great as always though:

Let’s hope I get some more raw happening tomorrow!

Dinner at Magic Mint: The Return

Husband and I went back to Magic Mint in Moonee Ponds, after enjoying our first visit there.  This time I was less greedy and only ordered the pakora for my entree, which includes two onion bhaji.  This was part of my onion bhaji experiment with my Philips air fryer as I wanted to see the deep fried bhaji one more time.  The pakora and bhaji were delicious like last time.  I didn’t take care with the photo because I wanted to hurry up and eat, so you get reclining tongs and photo bombing cutlery:

For my main I went for the Baigaan Aloo Masala, which is ‘eggplant, potatoes & green peas cooked in delicately balanced masala’, with a serving of coconut rice and plain naan.  This was delicious although a little too much on the oily side.  Next time, I’ll order another vegan option so I can work my way through the vegan offerings.  It’s all blog research:

Husband very much enjoyed his non-vegan meal.  The desserts are non-vegan but we were too stuffed anyway.  I took my leftovers home and had them the next day… for breakfast.

Magic Mint is located at 9 Hall Street in Moonee Ponds.  http://www.magicmint.com.au/