veggie kitchen

We celebrated our 3rd anniversary yesterday and decided to go to Veggie Kitchen (a newish vegetarian Chinese restaurant that we hadn't been to yet even though it's only about a 15 min walk from our house). Several people had blogged about their banquet (here, here, and here) so we decided on the banquet before we even arrived. The banquet menu changes throughout the year. Right now it is their "Late Summer Banquet." The the menu included homemade Apple Sprout Soy milk, Lettuce Delight, Tofu Nugget Salad, Ah Gei, Stuffed Cucumber, Veggie Cutlet, Five Elements Veggie Pot, Red Rice Yeast Wheat Meat on Forbidden Rice and Ice Cream with Strawberry Sauce & Tang Yuan (as well as Coffee, Tea or Soy milk). Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures after the Lettuce Delight (and it was a very blurry picture). The blogs I linked to have some good photos although a few of the dishes were different from what we had. I enjoyed every part of our meal (I'm not even sure which one was my favourite). The menu (which is on the Veggie Kitchen website ) has brief descriptions of each of the dishes. A lot of their food is made in house (the apple sprout soy milk, the wheat meat as well as some other things). As each item was brought out our server gave us a brief description as well which I really liked. They also have some vegan cupcakes available. Zac got a Neapolitan one to take away. We'll definitely be heading back to the Veggie Kitchen again (hopefully soon).

raspberry berry

a couple years ago I recreated and veganized one of my favourite desserts from when I was in university- raspberry berry cake. I finally got around to making it again (almost 3 years later). I use the berry ice cream recipe from how it all vegan (I had mixed frozen berries blended into the ice cream and frozen raspberries stirred in). The crust is the remainder of an old box of oreo cookie crumbs from a Melbourne based Canadian import company that doesn't exsist anymore (and somehow they didn't taste stale!). The raspberry coulis is just frozen raspberries, a bit of caster sugar and a bit of water heated and mixed in a saucepan. Not sure how i'm going to make the crust next time (Zac did volunteer to eat the insides of a packet of oreos so I could use the outsides to make crumbs). Maybe the next trip home we'll have to look into getting a box or 2 (I've never actually seen a box in canada or the US but I've never really looked either).

car crazy

wombat loves her car rides. we sometimes feel a bit bad that we don't actually own a car for her to go in more often. she knows the word car and sometimes if she happens to hear it in a sentence her ears prick up hoping that we're about to take her somewhere in one. last week wombat knew zac had the work car at home. she'd seen him pull up in front of the house in it the day before. the next morning zac had moved the car around the corner so we could get a truck with some furniture in front of the house. later in the day zac told wombat he'd take her for a car ride. he put her on lead and they walked out the front door. wombat saw that there was no car in front of the house where it had been and she refused to go anywhere thinking she might have to actually walk instead of sit in a car. she pushed her front paws into the driveway to try to keep zac from pulling her onto the footpath (she does this occasionally when we try to take her for a walk in heavy rain). zac coaxed her down and dragged her around the corner. as soon as she saw the car she ran up to the back waiting for zac to open the hatch for her. i think we might need to do something about her car obsession.

yong green food

we've been to yong green food a few times now (and blogged about it here). my blurry photos don't really do the food justice though.

zac got the chicken teriyaki. i had a small bite and liked it.

i've been wanting to try the raw nachos for a while so i ordered them:

they were really good! i loved that they came with plenty of each of the dips (a cashew sour cream, guacamole and a tomato based/salsa like dip) and the chips themselves were really nice too. it's the second time i've had a cashew based "sour cream" in the past couple weeks-- i'm really liking it. i'm going to have to try making it instead of my usual tofu sour cream (which i really love too) next time i'm making vegan sour cream.

for dessert we shared a piece of raw chocolate cheesecake. i think this one might be my favourite one (i've only tried one other flavour of cheesecake that they make but i think it'd be pretty hard to top this one for me).

zac wanted a smoothie so he got the raw cacao one which we ended up sharing (made with almond milk, raw cacao, vanilla and bananas). so yummy:

i always find our trips to yong green food a bit pricy but i think it's because we usually go for a late lunch and it seems a bit expensive for a lighter afternoon meal but the food is always really good. this meal was paid for by zac's nan who is no longer well enough to come out for dinner with us so she often gives us some money to go enjoy a meal somewhere.