We haven’t visited Mister Nice Guy’s Bake Shop in quite a while. Well, to be fair Husband did take the kids recently but he forgot that the Bake Shop is closed on a Monday, doh. After the kids beat him up for it, they took it well.
Arthur’s birthday is this week and it appears he has refused my order to stop growing up. I don’t think that will stop him writing stories for me on my birthday with titles such as “how to cook a butt” (actually that one was a graphic novel complete with recipe instructions).
For a pre-birthday treat, Husband took Arthur and DeeW to Mister Nice Guy’s today and he came home bouncing around in excitement, because of this lovely thoughtful gesture:
Arthur was given a cinnamon bun for his birthday-in-advance and declares it one of the best presents he’s ever received. I haven’t had a cinnamon bun myself in ages so asked Husband to get one for me and it was every bit as delicious as always:
A very mega thank you to Mister Nice Guy and the Bake Shop crew! Best customer service ever!
Okay, here are a few “What I ate this week” tidbits. There aren’t many because I’ve been sick with no appetite and when I felt okay to eat all I wanted were the oranges and strawberries and bananas.
First up, the Mushroom Pecan Burgers from Dreena Burton’s ‘The Everyday Vegan’. I’ve never been lucky with things made from mushroom. I like whole or sliced mushrooms but if it doesn’t look like a button shape to begin with, I won’t eat it. I can’t bring myself to eat enoki, it falls too much in to the category of alien space food. I’ve never been interested in turning mushrooms in to something else (like a burger), instead just preferring them sliced and tossed through pasta or on a pizza. And that’s really about it. Arthur and DeeW won’t go near mushrooms so I thought I’d be sneaky and whiz them up and put them in burger form. The recipe was very easy and contains tahini and hoisin sauce. I used oats instead of the breadcrumbs:
I liked them but the kids weren’t keen which was pretty frustrating as this is a really good recipe. I suppose they may have eaten them in a bread bun but I want to avoid giving them bread (or gluten, specifically) wherever possible. It’s worth noting Dreena includes a ‘version 2’ recipe in her book Let Them Eat Vegan and you can see those burgers here.
Still, it means I got to have the leftovers to myself, this time in corn tortillas with salsa and vegan sour cream with coriander:
For the first time ever, I made myself tofu scramble. Up until now I was never truly convinced that ‘tofu’ and ‘scramble’ belong in the same sentence. Kind of like apricot chicken. Or any of those ‘fruit’ flavours in the Cadburys family block. I had some tofu that had been defrosted and pressed (I think it was firm tofu) so I just crumbled it and fried it up with a pinch of curry powder and black salt. I haven’t used my black salt much and boy when I added it to the tofu scramble, could you smell egg! It smelt and looked so much like scrambled eggs that I had to sit there for a few minutes trying to will myself to eat it. I added some of the coconut bacon I’d make and some rocket (I love rocket, yeah-eh) along with a little bit of vegan mayo. Delicious!
More burgers from Let Them Eat Vegan!, this time the Lentil Walnut Burgers. The recipe calls for green lentils but I only had brown and they still tasted great. There’s also diced apple (though I grated it) which adds a little sweetness without being too sweet. I really liked these:
I saw these green curry soups at Aldi. I love green curry but not as a soup so I put most of it (but not all the liquid) on brown rice. It wasn’t very good, a bit too sweet and the vegies too blergh looking and I gave up after a few spoonfuls. Then felt a bit crappy because I’d put a couple of these soups (the red curry variety as well) in a bag of goodies for my sister’s birthday:
Woolworths sell these pakoras in their freezer section and they were over a dollar off so I grabbed some as a snack to have back at my mum’s house. They tasted fine enough but were too dry when reheated:
I made the Pecan Date Nibblers from Let Them Eat Vegan! as an experiment for a short family holiday we have coming up. The sweetness comes from the dates and maple syrup though next time I will cut the maple syrup way down as they were pretty sweet. Arthur loved them, DeeW not really. I added pumpkin seeds to the mix:
I made my sister a lemon slice using Mel’s recipe but because I was plain old lazy I didn’t include the dairy free margarine and instead just dumped the condensed soy milk in without heating it. I’ve never used the vegan version of condsensed milk and like the dairy version it’s basically massive sugar overload in canned form. Does it stop one from having a big spoonful? Not usually:
I’m hoping that my food blog posts (well, my cooking I should say) for September will be far more interesting because of Vegan MoFo. I’m looking forward to trying lots of recipes from my cookbooks, especially raw recipes. See you then!
Rocket, YEAH-EHH!
veganopoulous.com <-- I've moved here! 