6 month anniversary and PIZZA

Sorry I have been neglecting the blog - camera went MIA for a little while and so although I was cooking a fair bit, I didn't take any photos of it.

But I am back - welcome to 2009. I am going to try and be a little healthier in my cooking for the next little while (trying to shed xmas festivity weight).

But first - today Nat and I celebrated our 6month wedding anniversary!!! The time has just flown by.

I asked Nat what he wanted for dinner to celebrate and he wanted pizza. I had never made pizza before - and I had the recipe from VWaV so I decided to give it a go.

IT WAS FANTASTIC!!!
For all those people like me who think that pizza is too hard its not!! I don't like any of the soy cheeses available in Aussie and so I didn't think it would be so good without cheese - it was so yummy.

It is easy and so SO worth it. We are going to be eating pizza a lot more in this house (at least once a month) - and once we have got a few nice pizza combinations going we are going to have a pizza party!! I need to get another pizza tray first though!!




I used the VWaV pizza dough and sauce recipes and then topped it with the following:
sundried tomatoes
olives
onion rings
pineapple
kittee's seitan, cubed
capsicum
vegan parmesan cheese (I don't think this is necessary for a good pizza - we just had some in our cupboard)
BBQ sauce
mushrooms

The finished product - isn't it awesome!!

I would love to hear your favourite topping combinations for pizza (especially if you don't use fake cheese).
Have a great 2009

Sorry for my absence

Hi all, I realise that I haven't blogged here for ages - things have just been crazy.
I started work at the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday. The people are all really lovely which is nice - what wasn't so nice was that on my first day of work I had to go to a work lunch and there was NOTHING vegan on the menu apart from "lettuce leaves with citrus dressing". How embarrassing to only be able to eat lettuce (thus perpetrating the image that vegans only eat rabbit food). So because I didn't want to eat only lettuce I ordered some sourdough bread which came with butter - so I ended up spending a forking fortune for some lettuce and a few pieces of bread. I was really angry and rather embarrassed. Next week is another lunch - and as I know about it before hand I got the menu - and once again all I can eat are the side dishes of salad or vegetables (and once again I will be paying about $10 per side dish). I hate eating out in Hobart :(

Nat and I have been eating (which is a good start) - but at the end of the day I have just been too tired to take a photo of what I make - Nat and I also had Nat's mum down for two nights and then my brother down for one night and so we have hardly had any time to breath - let alone cook and blog.

I just thought I would show you a few pictures of some dishes that we have had over the last fortnight. Then I think I will go and have a nap - I am so tired (I worked at the Organic Market Stall from 5.30am this morning and only just got back home). Tara nominated me for a blog award- but I think I will do that a bit later tonight.

So onto the eating!!

Pumpkin Oat Patties (made up recipe that needs
a lot of tweaking before I post it), wedges and green beans.

Zucchini Mozzarella Sticks from Happy Herbivore. These were really good. A healthy snack - I was a little lazy and didn't crush up the bread crumbs as much as I should have but it still worked well.

Chickpea and Spinach Curry from VWaV. I thought this was nice. But I have simpler chickpea spinach Marsala recipe that I enjoy much better.

I don't know how often I will be able to blog until Christmas - but I try to be a little bit more diligent. I hope you stay sane over the Christmas period.

Sparkled Ginger Cookies are SO good

VWaV Sparkled Ginger Cookies

Oh My Goodness - if you have not made these cookies then you do not know what you are missing out on!!! I made these three days ago and I think that these will be the cookies that I bake for Christmas parties and Christmas day snacks. I used to love an awesome ginger cake that my friends mum (the owner and chef of the restaurant where Nat and I got married) used to make - this had that flavour.

They were a different texture to a lot of the cookies I usually make. I made them quite large and they pillowed up and looked very pretty. They had a beautiful soft texture. mmm..... they will not last as long as I thought they might. Oh well - I am not upset because they were so ridiculously easy that it will take no time to make them again.

VWaV kicks some cookie arse once again!!

Oh - does anyone know of a good ginger cake recipe?? I would love to make one.

apple cabbage and spinach salad and Pumpkin oat cookies

Apple, red cabbage and spinach salad. Yuuummmmm.

Well today was a (relatively) busy day for me. I am on holidays but I had a few pre-employment things to sort out. I had to go and get a pre-employment medical done (all clear!!) and then I went to do some op-shopping for some work clothes. I found 4 really nice shirts and one skirt and it all came to under $15 (I think it was $14 exactly). I am trying to walk everywhere so as to help lower my carbon emissions and also reduce the amount of money that we pay for transport.

By the time I got home I was pretty hungry. I initially ate a piece of corn on the cob (it was raw and beautifully sweet). Then I decided to whip up a salad inspired by The Café Fresh Cookbook. It was so simple and easy. I just thinly sliced some red cabbage (local and organic) and some baby spinach leaves (local and organic). I then added a small handful of sultanas and 1/2 a diced jonagold apple (which was the only type of apple I had on hand - this apple is crisp and has a bit of a bite to it but is still quite sweet). I then made a dressing from the juice of 1/2 orange and 1 1/2 tsp of apple juice concentrate and poured this over the salad. It was just divine - I had to stop myself from having seconds.

Pumpkin Oat Cookies

Two days ago I made VWaV's Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies. I cooked and pureed my own pumpkin because you can't buy canned pumpkin here and I added the flaxseeds, used coconut oil instead of canola oil and used sultanas instead of raisins. I also used spelt flour which seemed to work fine.

I found it a little difficult knowing when these cookies were cooked - they do firm up a LOT when they come out of the oven. They tasted a lot like ANZAC biscuits. I took them to a staff meeting and everyone loved them (and thought that they were ANZACs). I will be making these again but I have notes in my VWaV that these are still REALLY soft when they come out of the oven.

Chocoloate Thumbprint Cookies

Thanks for all your well wishes yesterday - Nat is feeling a lot better. However now I am the poorly one. Yesterday I got my first exam out of the way - this afternoon I have my second one (which makes me annoyed because Nat has the day off and will be sitting at home watching the election coverage and I will be slaving unknowingly in my own little world for a few hours). Yesterday's exam was ok - but after I walked home (about 40mins) I was hot and fairly dehydrated and felt really ill - so instead of studying or going to a farewell party for a fellow committee member of Against Animal Cruelty Tasmania, I was lying on the couch with the most excruciating stomach pain ever. When Nathan came home he covered me with a blanket and went to the chemist and got this herbal stomach relaxant. Then, because I was not able to study on the computer - he got my notes and tested me and read through them with me - I hope some of it stuck - I am rather nervous and will be studying pretty hard for the next few hours.

Anyway, for the farewell party that I didn't end up going to, I needed to take something that was very quick and easy to make - as I was also trying to study. I found the Chocolate Thumbprint Cookie recipe in VWaV and decided to make that.

I didn't make many changes (as I was going to be serving them to other people) but I did replace the peanut oil with tasteless coconut oil and used a little bit less sugar.

They turned out really well. They were soft but not fudgy. I will be making these again - however I will start to experiment with agave syrup and spelt flour. I will let you know how it goes when I ever get round to it.

Now off to study *groan*

VWaV Date-nut Diamonds

So I should be studying for my last ever exams for my undergrad degree... (I have three more exams over the next two weeks) - but I have been procrastinating - well getting the house into shape and baking stuff for Nat to take to work (he has 4x12hr days in a row!!!). Although I have found a few really good bars for Nat to take to work - for Mofo I have been trying a lot of new recipes - and here is another.

I have been eyeing off the Date-nut diamond from VWaV for a while now. I thought that if I didn't make them now I would probably not make them for a long time (if ever). As usual I changed the recipe a little bit so here are my modifications:

I used white spelt flour instead of the all purpose flour
I used about a cup of dried dates
I reduced the sugar to 1/2 a cup and used raw sugar (rather than brown sugar)
I used about a 1/4 cup desiccated coconut
I used arrowroot flour instead of tapioca starch.

I also baked the diamonds in a 20cm square Pyrex dish which is smaller than what the recipe called for. This worked out really well as I almost had trouble making the top layer spread this far - It wouldn't have covered a bigger dish.

The bars burnt a little on the edges but hold together nicely and are really different to the other bars that I have made. Nat really likes them so I will make them again. As they are higher in fat than his other work bars I will probably make these a little less than he would like ;)

[VeganMoFo #4] Cooking up some kickarse VWaV cookies

Nat is a tour guide. Now that the guiding season has started Nat is sometimes away for days at a time. He has just got a job with a day tour company which is much cooler!! As his next trip is for backpackers they either have to take their meals or buy them. Because the guests will all buy yummy non-vegan sweets I thought that I would make nat something that he could eat and not feel deprived.



I recently got Vegan with a Vengeance and nat asked if I could bake the Big Giantoid Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies. Well I baked them - but I made them normal cookie size. This meant that I made HEAPS (I forgot to check how many cookies the recipe made)

I am very into coconut oil at the moment and so I substituted it for canola oil. I also didn't have any vanilla soymilk (so I added a little bit extra vanilla essence) and I used half unbleached and half wholemeal spelt flour instead of the all purpose flour (I don't actually know what all purpose flour is - I am guessing just plain flour??). I baked them for 10 mins at 175°C.

Nat loves these cookies and, as they taste FANTASTIC, I am happy too. My only difficulty is keeping them away from nat so that there are some left for him to take away on his trip!!