hot and cold

I don't mind the heat but I need it to be somewhat cool overnight (lower than 20C) to be able to sleep. By the time Monday came I was exhausted from 3 nights with very little, not very good sleep. I was very excited to see that the forecast for today was that it wasn't even going to get to 20C during the day (and that it was only going to be like that for 1 day). I took Wombat for an extra long walk in the wind and rain then huddled inside most of the rest of the day letting the wind cool down our still pretty warm house. I'm cold now. I'm ready for the heat again. It's supposed to go down to 13C overnight tonight (that seems really cold to me) but then be in the mid-20s tomorrow. One cold day is just enough for me.

tempeh

A couple weeks ago I decided to try to make some homemade tempeh. I was able to get a free sample of tempeh starter from here. The website also has instructions on how to make tempeh. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures until the very end so I don't have any of the process.
My plan was to make the tempeh when we were having a couple of hot days since it needs to incubate around 30C for 36-48 hours. I ended up doing it during the coldest couple days/nights of the week. First I soaked the beans for about 18 hours. Dehulling the beans was the most time consuming part since we don't have a grain mill so I did it by hand by rubbing the beans between my hands after they'd been soaking for a while and then removing the hulls when they floated to the top of the bowl.
After the soy beans had been mostly dehulled I cooked them in water with a bit of vinegar for 30 minutes, drained them and let them cool and dry for a bit before mixing in the tempeh starter. While the beans where cooling I took 3 zip lock sandwich size bags and poked lots and lots of little holes in the bag with a nail to allow the soy beans to breath while incubating. I filled each of the bags with about 1/3 of the soy beans and set up an incubator in our esky using a hot water bottle. I have no idea if it was at the right temperature and it definitely wasn't a constant temperature but it seemed to work. My best looking block of tempeh (the one pictured) looks a lot like the store bought ones because I had it sitting on a cooling rack over the hot water bottle (there wasn't enough room for all 3 on the bottom of the esky with the hot water bottle). I was a little concerned about the black bits but apparently that's normal (has to do with the air flow and heat levels). I fried a little bit up right after incubating it (I incubated mine 48 hours, I probably could have gone a couple hours or so more) and it tasted great. Zac made a stir fry with some of it the next night and it was sooooo good. What was left of it I sliced up and froze today (I sliced it so it would be easy to get just a bit of it if I want-- I hate trying to use just part of a frozen store bought tempeh block, it's so hard to cut). I'm impressed with my results in making tempeh but it was time consuming (mostly just trying to dehull the soy beans) and had to be well planned out so I was home when steps needed to be done.

Coco Loco

Kleopatra's Brew with Kashew Milk, iced. So amazing!
We used to go to Coco Loco (High St, Northcote) fairly often but for some reason we haven't been in ages (we just haven't gone to High St. much at all). We were up there today and Coco Loco was open so we decided to stop by because Khaled makes the best chocolate drinks ever (and a lot of his stuff is vegan). The one I got was an orange flavoured chocolate drink. I got it as an iced chocolate today. So rich and chocolatey and so good! Zac got a lemon myrtle chocolate drink. Both of us had our drinks made with his homemade cashew milk. We need to go back again soon.

attempting tempeh

I bought a bag of dried soybeans yesterday. While I was looking up information on how to cook soybeans properly I came across information on homemade tempeh so I'm going to attempt making that. I'm ordering a free sample of tempeh starter from Top Cultures (a Belgium based company). It doesn't seem to difficult to make so I'm hoping it turns out well because I do really like tempeh, I just don't buy it very often. I'll write about my tempeh making experience after I complete it. Has anyone else had any experience making tempeh?

Warung Agus

For our end of year dinner for work my boss booked us into the traditional Balinese restaurant Warung Agus (305 Victoria St, West Melbourne). Because we were a large group my boss had pre-arranged a set menu, including alternatives to the meaty dishes for the vegans and vegetarians in our group. I can't remember everything we ate (and I didn't take any pictures) but from looking at the online menu, our dishes included: Apokat Mebasa Santen Misi Oong (avocado with mushroom and coconut cream sauce), Krupuk Singkong (spicy vegetarian cassava crackers and peanut sauce), satay skewers (chicken for the meat eaters, tofu for the vegos), Toge (traditional Balinese gado gado - Mountain of steamed vegetables and bean curd with peanut sauce and cassava crackers), Tahu Istimewa (soya bean curd in lightly spicy sauce with crisp bean shoots, capsicum and cherry tomatoes), Temple Jagung (nutty flavoured soya bean morsels in sweet soy sauce with corn, spring onions and spices) and Mie Goreng (stir-fried wheat noodles with vegetables). Everything was presented amazingly and was really tasty. The servers were very friendly and made sure to point out which dishes were vegan as they brought them out. They also didn't make any effort to try to move us out even though I'm sure they were planning on turning off the lights and leaving long before we actually walked out the door. I'm looking forward to going back again hopefully in the near future.

Savi Seed

We fell in love with these when we were in Canada. They come in 3 different varieties but the cocoa kissed ones are the best by far. They taste like chocolate covered coffee beans. These amazing seeds (sacha inchi seeds) are large peanut sized, extremely high in Omega 3 and a complete protein source. We picked up several packets throughout our stay and for our trip home from Sarah's Place and Lifestyles Market. I'm hoping these soon get imported to Australia. We finished our last packet this afternoon (I'd been hiding it so we could share it with a friend). Now I've gotta wait until my next trip to Canada or hope that someone will bring some down soon (we've got friends coming down in a couple weeks-- I may have to ask them to bring some)

Westgarth Books & Cooks

After reading Kristy's mention of a new veg place in Westgarth I mentioned it to Zac when he got up this morning and he decided that's where he wanted to eat breakfast so we walked up there around mid-day. It's only the 3rd day of serving food in this great little bookshop (we were just up here last weekend to grab a quick coffee while running to the train station, we didn't even realize they would soon be opening a vegan cafe). Only some of the menu items were available but there was a good selection of raw food, mains and desserts. All vegan! Zac ordered the Little Aussie breakfast ($9.50): toast topped with cashew cheese and sort of a fresh salsa made of tomato, red capsicum and onion, and a side of rocket and avacoado. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of his meal (it looked pretty good). I had eaten breakfast earlier so I decided to get the green curry


(I forgot to take a photo until after I started taking apart the rice pile). It was really tasty. The curry was just slightly spicy with a very coconut-y flavour, filled with vegies and fried tofu cubes. The greens on the side were really nice.
We'll be heading back again once they get settled and have their full menu available (there's a list of the menu on their facebook page).
Westgarth Books & Cooks is at 77 High Street in Northcote.

almost back

It's been a while since I blogged. I have meant to do a couple posts in the past couple weeks but that hasn't happened. Soon I'll have the time an energy again.

Shakahari

For my birthday last week I decided I wanted to go to Shakahari for dinner. Half way there my bike tire tube decided it no longer wanted to hold air and split open leaving me with a suddenly flat tire. We locked our bikes up and walked the rest of the way there (and then all the way home afterwards). Fortunately it was a nice evening for walking.
Dinner was really good (but the couple of photos we took on our phones where very dark and blurry so I just deleted them). The menu is available online (I'd pretty much decided what I wanted when I'd looked at the menu the day before). We started with the Avacado Magic and the mushroom shinjuku. I was still congested from a cold so I wasn't tasting a lot of flavour but the fact I could taste things ment they must have been flavourful. I got the green, green laksa for my main which I really enjoyed (nice and spicy- perfect for getting over a cold). It's description on the menu is: Green tea soba noodles (buckwheat/wheat ), spinach and bean sprouts cooked in a Thai krachai ( lesser galangal ) green curry coconut stock. This is topped
with a variety of fried tofu, tempeh and fragrant herbs.
Zac got the Shaolin Treasure, described as: The secret of Shaolin monks! Five grain mixed rice cooked with vegetable stock to a risotto like texture. This comes with a bowl of braised turnips,spiced tofu,gingko nuts, beancurd seitan, and bok choy.
At first glance Zac was pretty sure his meal wouldn't fill him but within a couple minutes of finishing he decided he was too full to have dessert. We ended up not getting dessert and just having some mini raw cheesecakes when we got home.
That was only the second time we've eaten at Shakahari but I think we do need to go there more often for special meals.

new bag

For months (maybe even more than a year) I have been planning on making myself a hand bag. I finally chose some Ink and Spindle fabric I liked at a market last summer or autumn. I got around to buying fabric for the rest of the bag about a month ago. Last week I finally worked out a pattern for my bag and made a test bag out of some scrap fabric I got from work. I made a few adjustments (like decreasing the size by 3cm on each side), decided to add some pockets and then started sewing the bag yesterday. I needed to buy some different bias tape today and then I managed to complete my bag:

View of bag with front flap open:

(There are also 2 pockets inside the main compartment of the bag that line up with the 2 pockets shown in the photo above)

My sewing skills are pretty basic but somehow I managed to complete this with minimal errors and messes (you can see a few issues like not quite straight stitching and slightly wonky corners when you look closely but generally nobody but me will do that).
I also discovered it seems to be imposible to buy the pieces to make an adustable strap. Spotlight only had D shaped loops and I wanted square (rectangle) ones and Lincraft didn't seem to carry anything either (I just looked on their website but didn't think it would be worth the effort to go into the city to see if the store might have something). I found a website that carried the pieces I wanted but when I put together an order it only came to just over $8 and the site wouldn't let me complete an order for less than $15 and there was nothing else I needed or wanted from the company. I ended up just chopping the adjustable strap off the bag that I got this year from our yearly conference we go too (I just gave 4 other bags from that conferenence to the opp shop last summer) and sewing it onto my bag. I'm very happy with the results.

Hepburn Springs

Last weekend we went to Hepburn Springs for the weekend. It was kind of my birthday gift (even though it isn't my birthday until next week). We went to see Henry Wagons (of the band Wagons that played at our wedding) play a solo gig at the Palais in Hepburn. We stayed at the Hepburn Motor Inn which was right next door to the Palais.
I love how vegan friendly Hepburn Springs and Daylesford are.
Saturday night I was hoping we could have the banquet at the Hepburn Retreat Centre (formerly the Continental) but they didn't have enough bookings so it was cancelled. Instead we went to the Electric Sitar in Daylesford (4/27 Albert Lane). It's an Indian cafe/take away place. They only have a couple vegan items on the menu but the 2 we had were both really good (eggplant masala and a chickpea dahl).
Sunday morning we went to the Harvest Cafe and Organic Grocery (29 Albert St. Daylesford) for breakfast. We both had the scrambled tofu which was good although I thought it had too many olives in it (and I like olives).
Sunday afternoon we discovered a new pub that we had never been to in Hepburn (in a part of Hepburn we didn't know existed--where a lot of the locals live and go to school): The Old Hepburn Hotel. A Melbourne band (The Brothers Grim) was playing there in the afternoon so we thought we'd try to find it and check it out. The pub had both Coopers Dark Ale and Pale Ale on tap (but no vegan food other than the veggie toastie without the cheese). It felt a bit like we were in Portland, Oregan when we walked in the pub. It was a great place.
Sunday dinner was at Jasmine Thai (right across from the Palais). They have all their vegetarian items that can be made vegan clearly marked on their menu (the ones with the asterisk next to them in the photo below). The food there is good and soooo filling (and no doggie bags).
Henry's gig was really good (and the 20 of us that had pre-purchased tickets had couches and chairs reserved at the front). It comes second with only the time most of Wagons played at our wedding being a better gig.














Monday morning after a bit of a battery issue with our flexicar (which we're pretty sure wasn't our fault but possibly an issue with their swipe card thing which could drain the battery) we headed to The Chocolate Mill before heading back to Melbourne. We arrived just as their morning demo was finishing and a woman was explaining that the chocolate they use (Callebaut)-- also the brand my parents used in their chocolate factory-- has always been fair trade but at the start of this year the became properly fair trade certified. The dark chocolate is vegan (Zac discovered this a few years ago at my mom's place so whenever we're there we go looking for dark chocolate things left in the disused factory) and they clearly mark all their vegan friendly chocolates in their display. I got a chocolate orange piece and a chocolate covered candied ginger. Zac got 2 mint chocolates. We then stopped in their cafe and got a vegan hot chocolate (the photo was taken before I stirred the chocolate through the hot, frothy soy milk).
















It was the perfect relaxing weekend away.

sick kids

In past years we've had a lot of problems with parents giving their sick child Panadol or other fever/pain meds and sending them in to kinder. Then they try to act surprised when we call them at lunch time to inform them their child is miserable and has a fever. This year parents have been much better (with a couple exceptions). Yesterday a parent came in and stated that his child had felt like they had a fever (they didn't actually take his temperature but he said he felt quite hot) so he had given his child Panadol and brought him into kinder saying he was fine. Upon hearing this both me and the teacher tried to explain to him that his child can't be at kinder because a fever means your body is fighting an infection and there are some nasty flu type illnesses going around. He seemed quite surprised when we said he would have to take his child home and the look he had was one that made me think that today he would bring his child in on Panadol but know not to say anything to us. Fortunately he didn't do that and the child was away today hopefully having a good rest at home and recovering from his illness.
This morning we were chatting to a parent about illnesses and we said that we do get parents bringing them in on Panadol and we don't find out until lunchtime when the meds wear off that the child is sick. His response was "That's not fair!!" Finally a parent that really understands the importance of keeping sick children home (and was quite upset that others may not do the same). He had actually had to cancel a meeting at work today so he could go home for a few hours in the middle of the day to take care of his possibly sick child that they decided they didn't want to infect others at child care and his wife who was sick as well. They also called into kinder about midday to make sure their kinder child was ok and not showing any signs that he may be coming down with what the rest of the family has had.
I spent half my planning time yesterday researching children and illnesses to try to type up a nice email for families stating the importance if keeping an unwell child at home (and how sick is too sick to bring them to kinder). I'm sure it is hard for working parents to keep sick children at home but it is sooooo important for the child to rest and that they don't share their germs with the children and staff at kinder.

mocha

Chocolate mint mochas were the drink that started me on coffee (although they don't really have a a coffee taste at all). In grade 11 a friend convinced me to skip a class to come with her to starbucks to have this amazing mint mocha she'd had a few times. I went and fell in love (and generally I don't even like mint and chocolate together). I haven't had a mint mocha in years (mochas aren't really that big at all in Australia but most coffee shops back home serve them-- and they're usually much better than the coffee). Mr. Nice Guy had mint mocha on their menu when we were there for brunch yesterday so I couldn't pass it up. They served it in a Batman mug! (I messed up the cocoa powder on top before i took the photo). We also had the french toast (I had strawberries, Zac had blueberries) which is also blogged about here. I haven't had french toast that good in a long time.

mallacoota again

Last week we spent a week in Mallacoota to celebrate Zac's mum's birthday. I took about 700 pictures (and now I have to get really good at hitting the delete button because there are way too many photos and a lot are very similar-- trying to get that really good shot). I couldn't choose just a few to put on here (I have about 90 of my favourites on facebook) so I made a few collages (click on the image to make it larger).
Wombat had the best time (and didn't get sore feet the entire trip-- a first for her. I think it was because we brought all her different meds for allergies with us so of course we didn't need them). She ran free on the beaches every day:

She spent her evenings charming everybody and getting fed way to much junk food from people. We had our own unit at the Adobe Mudbrick Flats (same place we stayed last time) and Zac's mum hired the penthouse for the week. We spent most of our time at the penthouse and just slept, watched the sunrise and had short quiet breaks at our unit. The penthouse has a huge balcony with an amazing view and a bird feeder on the rail where dozens of birds feed all day long (at our unit we had a bird feeder just outside the floor to ceiling lounge room windows and a small outdoor space where we could sit next to the bird feeder).
We did a lot of bird watching at the units and around the area:

The bird feeders attracted lorikeets, galahs, rosellas, red browed firetail finches, fairy wrens, king parrots (who would feed from your hand) and sparrows (and I'm sure I'm forgetting several other birds). At the beaches and in the inlet and up in Eden, NSW (we took a day trip up there) we saw lots of sea eagles and pelicans. It was pretty amazing seeing so many birds everywhere we went.
I got up for the sunrise 3 or 4 mornings while we were there (not something I usually do but I was accidentally awake the first morning and then after that I kept waking up and then didn't want to miss watching it. One of the rooms in the penthouse faces right out across the balcony straight towards the winter sunrise. The woman staying in that room watched the sunrise every morning with no chance of sleeping through it (there are no curtains on the floor to ceiling windows in that room). Even the morning it rained, the sun was pretty amazing when it broke through the clouds (the black and white looking images are from that morning-- I didn't actually alter the colour on the photos-- it was very grey and shots taken into the light look very greyscale). The colours of the sky during sunset were also amazing with lots of pink clouds. The rainbow in the bottom left of the collage was in Eden. Just as we finished taking Wombat for a short run on the beach there, the rain clouds broke. As we were getting into the car we noticed a double rainbow over the water so we had to stop and take some photos.

We spent about an hour a day at the beaches. I could have sat there all day watching and listening to the waves roll over into tubes and crash on the rocks.

On the way home we spent a night in Paynesville. I convinced Zac we had to make a quick trip over to Raymond Island before the sun set so I could take photos of koalas on the small island (there is about 258 according to a count done a couple weeks ago). We managed to find about 5 (including one really alert one that was watching us and the other people walking around the trail below her) in the half hour we were on the island. We spotted the kangaroos relaxing in someone's front yard at Gypsy Point (a slight detour on the way out of Mallacoota).

Mallacoota is totally worth the 7 hour drive from Melbourne (and the pub even has vegan risotto on the menu which was an exciting bonus when we went there for dinner one night). I'm glad Zac's mum lives at about the halfway point though so we can have a stopover night along the way. Wombat LOVED her holiday but was completely exhausted by the end of it (and I'm pretty sure she's gained a kilo or 2 from all the food people gave her even though she did a LOT of running at the beaches).

chilli

We cooked dinner for ourselves only one night during our trip (every other night was at the penthouse with Zac's mum and everyone else or at one of the 2 places to eat in town). The night we (I) cooked Zac was sick so I got to eat most of it. It was the best chilli I've made on holidays (I often make it when we go to a holiday house because it's easy to bring all the ingredients for it). This one had about 1 cup of green lentils in just enough stock to cook them, a can of tomatoes, a handful of TVP, a can of cannellini beans, some chilli powder and cayenne pepper and a large clove of garlic (which I fried for about a minute in a frying pan before adding it into the chilli not long after I started cooking the lentils). The chilli was great served with with tortilla chips. I need to remember to make this at home instead of only on holidays because it's a nice easy dinner and sooooo good.