words@random

tempeh

2012-01-29T20:42:00.002+11:00

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

2012-01-26T20:01:00.005+11:00

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

2012-01-10T15:53:00.003+11:00

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

2011-12-16T10:15:00.004+11:00

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

2011-12-03T20:52:00.002+11:00

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

2011-12-03T15:47:00.000+11:00

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

2011-11-22T21:30:00.003+11:00

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

2011-09-04T10:38:00.003+10:00

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

2011-08-27T18:32:00.000+10:00

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

2011-08-25T19:38:00.009+10:00

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

2011-08-10T17:09:00.002+10:00

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

2011-07-17T09:28:00.000+10:00

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

2011-07-15T20:26:00.005+10:00

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

2011-07-11T09:45:00.000+10:00

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.

packaging free

2011-06-25T10:07:00.002+10:00

I came across this article today: Zero Packaging Grocery Store to Open in Austin Texas. The concept is really cool. Some of the organic shops around here have bulk sections (and a lot of supermarkets back home have bulk sections) but I love the step forward in.gredients will take. They'll have a pretty big range of products and be mostly organic and local. Customers are encouraged to bring their own containers but compostable containers will be available. CERES shop works in a similar way. They do have a lot of packaged items but also have a big range of grains, dried fruits and household cleaning products in bulk. CERES customers can bring in their own containers and there are sometimes extra containers that people have left for others and small paper bags. We need more places like this around. Our little kitchen bin gets filled from plastic packaging that can't be recycled. Hopefully bulk purchasing will become more the norm over the next decade.

mr. nice guy cafe

2011-06-04T16:03:00.001+10:00

The Mr. Nice Guy cafe officially opened yesterday so we decided to stop in today. We didn't make it there until afternoon so they're breakfast menu was not available (Zac was a little disappointed) but I was planning on trying something tex-mex anyway. Zac got the taco ($7). He said it was really good but it wasn't enough (so he got a cupcake to go). I wanted to try the tostadas but they weren't available so I was asked if I wanted enchiladas instead ($12). They weren't listed on the menu so I don't know if it is a regular menu item or just a replacement item for the couple things they didn't have available. Enchiladas were exactly what I wanted and these ones were really good: a spicy mix of rice and beans inside and topped with melty vegan nacho cheese. It came with a side of corn bread that was really nice as well. My phone photo doesn't really make the food look that pretty but it was really good! Extras are available for the Mexican dishes like vegan sour cream and I think guacamole.

We'll definitely be heading back again for more tex-mex and cupcakes and maybe one day we'll actually get out of bed and be down there before the breakfast menu finishes so we can try that too.

Mr. Nice Guy Bakery Cafe is at the side of the Noise Bar (291 Albert St.) on the side of the Upfield bike path.

elvis

2011-05-18T16:32:00.000+10:00

Wombat started doing this lip curl thing a year or so ago. It kinda looks like she's growling in the photo but she's not (she's hoping I'll hand her the treat I'm holing). She just sits there looking at us sometimes with her lip stuck to her teeth like that. Maybe she likes Elvis?

Best Caesar Salad Ever

2011-05-14T16:51:00.000+10:00

Caesar salad was one of my favourites when I was young (I think it was one of the only salads I liked since I didn't really care for lettuce). We got a head of cos (romaine) lettuce in our veggie box this week but no other really "salad-y" sorts of vegies. I figured some really nice dressing would make it into a good salad and then remembered Caesar salad. I googled vegan recipes for Caesar dressing and the one I ended up with was from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan (which I own a copy of). The recipe is on Dreena's blog. I skipped the agave nectar as suggested on this blog and used kelp powder instead of kelp granules (and used slightly less than the amount of granules in the recipe). The dressing was amazing!!! I made homemade croutons by cutting bread into small cubes, stirring the cubes around in a bowl with a bit of olive oil then sprinkling with salt and putting them in the oven for about 10 minutes). I also put some fake bacon chips in the salad as well. I don't usually eat salad in winter because I'm usually cold and only want warm foods at meals but I think I might make an exception with this one.

winter

2011-05-11T17:32:00.000+10:00

Winter has arrived- almost a month early. We turned on the heat for the first time last weekend. Yesterday morning I got out of bed and was FREEZING (it was not even 7am). I figured I'd warm up in a few minutes once I got moving (like I usually do) but could not warm up. I finally looked at the thermostat to see that it was only 5C inside our house. Once the heat was on I warmed up quickly (and then had to spend 2 1/2 hours outside in the cold at work first thing). Today actually felt colder outside first thing at work (at least we were inside by the time the rain came). One of my co-workers set the home page on the computers to a weather page that also shows the "feels like" temperature. She then watched it throughout the afternoon and gave us updates in the room every half hour (it was "feels like" 4C at one point then it started warming up again. I think it was about feels like 6 or 7C last time I looked). I'm really not ready for winter to come (although I don't think I'll ever be ready for it). I did manage to convince Zac that we need an electric blanket this morning though (I've been trying for a while but he's always been against it but I talked to a co-worker about it yesterday and how much she's been in love with hers for the past 15 years). I need it mainly to pre-warm the bed and then keep me warm until Zac comes to bed. I don't think I actually produce my own body heat- even with flannel sheets, 2 doonas and a Mexican blanket I'm still cold most nights in winter.

One more reason

2011-04-20T14:37:00.003+10:00

If I wasn't already vegan for the animals I think reading The China Study would have turned me to veganism. I didn't realise there was so much research out there showing that a whole food, plant based diet is so beneficial to health (and how meat and dairy are connected to so many illnesses). It's unfortunate that drug companies and industries based on animal foods try to keep this information from being common knowledge. Even most doctors have very little background in nutrition and would rather push drugs (that don't actually seem to give that much hope) instead of encouraging a patient to change their diet. It seems ridiculous that there is a lot of research showing that a whole foods, plant based diet can actually reverse heart disease but doctors are unwilling to share (or don't even know) this information and instead a patient is prescribed drugs for their lifetime or surgery that may not be necessary if they changed their diet. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to know more about the relationship between diet and disease (heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes and autoimmune diseases).

surprise!

2011-04-20T14:19:00.000+10:00

The other night we went to Zac's sister's engagement party. It was held in their backyard, using their outdoor entertainment area. The weather ended up being surprisingly good and not really cold until later in the evening (and I made sure to dress really warmly expecting to freeze). An hour or so into the party, the MC got everyone's attention to make a speech. He rambled on for a few minutes and then his mobile rang. It was Lea (neither Lea or Jay were standing up front with him) letting him know to pass on the news that their wedding was about to begin! Huge surprise (although Lea filled me in on the secret about an hour earlier since I was one of the official photographers and she wanted me to know what to expect)! The ceremony was short and personal and Lea looked absolutely amazing (and Jay looked good too 8)) Funny cuz earlier I had thought it was weird that her hair was done so nicely for the backyard engagement party and Zac had thought the DJ in the corner of the yard was a bit overboard but as soon as we realised it was their wedding it all made sense. It was a really great night and I'm so happy for the two of them. Some of us we're almost a little disappointed that we won't be having another Barwon Heads wedding in November but this was the perfect way to do their wedding and I guess we could still go to Barwon Heads even if there isn't a wedding happening.

rain

2011-04-12T14:45:00.006+10:00

We had a LOT of rain last night and this morning. So much rain that it's off the graph and over the next graph. If you look at the chart to the left, rainfall is the bottom graph. It goes back to 0mm at 9am each day. Overnight we had 47.2mm of rain. The graph only goes to 20mm so the maximum is way above the top of the graph. Look where I put the red star. That's where 47mm is (close up below). I'm pretty sure that I was taught you can't just do that with a graph (put your figures on a totally different graph cuz that's where your graph needs to end).

I was very glad that the huge downpours we had this morning were on and off. It stopped just in time for me to leave to work and get there on time. Just as I arrived and moved my bike under cover another downpour started. One of the office staff had a similar experience on the bus-- it was pouring while she was on the bus and then it stopped when she got off to get on the tram. I should have taken Wombat to the creek this afternoon to see how full the creek is with all the water running off into it.

A bit of downpour (fortunately it kept stopping just before the growing puddle reached the door each time):

proud

2011-04-07T16:59:00.001+10:00

I'm so proud of Wombat. I think she's finally starting to understand that other dogs aren't a threat. Yesterday we went down to the creek at the peak time for people to be walking their dogs. We saw a small dog coming towards us so we went on another part of the trail and ended up with another small dog coming towards us. There was a small grassy area next to the trail so I just pulled Wombat over and figured we'd keep walking towards them as far as we could and when she got stressed I would just do the usual stop and sit her and scratch her under her collar (ready to grab her by her collar if she lunges forward). When we got to the point where Wombat started stressing, we stopped and I went to sit her but she dropped into a laying down position (she's NEVER done that around another dog-- she's even awkard about doing it when we command her to do it at home). I just did my usual scratch her neck and praise her for laying. She just lay there until the dog was a bit past us and she had to jump up to turn and to be able to see that the other dog really was walking away and not planning an attack from behind. Today we were heading down to the creek a bit earlier hoping for less dogs. While we were on the oval before getting to the creek trail a dog started running up to us from the trail. I called to the woman to call her dog but she ignored me (twice). I figured I'd get Wombat ready for meeting the running dog. I looked down to grab Wombat's collar and she was already laying down! I scratched her and praised her while the dog came up to see if it could sniff her. The dog even went out of Wombat's sight while it sniffed my leg but Wombat stayed laying down. The dog then ran back to it's person (who had started calling it by this point). I gave Wombat lots of praise for her good behaviour (I really wished I'd brought the treat that I had intended on bringing in case we had this event happen). Laying down is supposed to be considered a submissive position. Even though she's not rolling over on her back to expose her belly, I'm sure even the low position she's in makes her a bit vulnerable so I'm hoping she's doing this because she's starting to realise other dogs aren't really a threat and she's now starting to attempt to meet or play with them. Hopefully she'll keep up these behaviours when meeting dogs.

nuts and seeds

2011-04-05T18:50:00.002+10:00

I've been making lots of raw crackers in the dehydrator lately. I make them based on this recipe. The first batch I did with the Italian seasonings used in the recipe. The next batch I divided up and did some with garlic, some with a bit of sea salt and some with some Old Bay Seasoning. The second batch I also mixed in some chia seeds with the flax seeds. I really like them all and I'm not sure which are my favourite. Yesterday I decided I wanted to make some different dips to use for crackers and veggies (I usually just make some variety of hummus or a lentil dip). I decided I wanted to veganize tzatziki. There doesn't seem to be any plain vegan yogurt in Australia (they are all vanilla) so I needed to find something else to use. I thought about vegan sour cream (which has kind of a plain yogurt taste but then decided some sort of cashew cream base would probably work the best). I googled it and right away came up with this recipe (scroll down to the end of the post for the tzatziki recipe). I used a little more garlic than in the recipe cuz we love garlic. The dip is amazing! The flax/chia seed crackers and dip make a perfect snack.

golden plains

2011-03-16T18:03:00.000+11:00

I think this year's Golden Plains festival was my favourite of all the Meredith and Golden Plains festivals we've been to. There were so many good bands and we spent most of both days at the amphitheatre enjoying the bands (usually I spend almost half my time at the campsite when there's bands on I don't really care for). I'm not even sure which band was my favourite but The Hold Steady, Graveyard Train, Belle and Sebastian, The Besnard Lakes and Justin Townes Earle were some of my top picks for favourite.
The weather was almost perfect. It got a bit hot the first day and stayed warm overnight. The next morning started out fairly hot and just when we were thinking we would have to go back to the campsite for shade (there wasn't enough for everyone at the amphitheatre), the clouds came in and covered the sun. The cool change came and brought a little bit of refreshing rain. It got a bit cold overnight (glad we brought the "donkey blanket" which kept me extra warm at at night). I thought we would have to pack up a wet tent in drizzle on Monday but we woke up at 9:30 to the tent getting way too warm in the sun and everything was pretty much dry when we packed up.
We ate really well too. This was the first time in a few years that we've gone on our own, in our own (hired) car instead of packing a few of us into a friend's car with all our gear. We decided that we should take advantage of all the extra space and bring anything we want. We brought a LOT of food-- good food. For breakfast we had peanut butter and banana sandwiches (although Zac ended up having lentil dip sandwiches). For lunches we had Wolffie's black bean and lentil salad from La Dolce Vegan!

Snacks included lentil dip on vita-wheat crackers or bread, dried berry and nut mix, corn chips and homemade salsa, homemade tofu jerky, apples and chocolate. We also decided this year to take a thermos of coffee (don't know why this has never occurred to us before) so we didn't have to stand in massive lines to get our caffeine fix in the morning. It worked great (we were planning on having iced coffee but never put the thermos in the esky and it was still quite warm 30 hours after I made it). The only thing we could have done better on was the beer. It's always hard buying cans cuz that's not what we usually drink and Zac tends to get the cheapest cans possible. We've now realized that's a stupid idea and we should get proper beer in cans (I was a little jealous of all the people I saw with Asahi aluminium bottles and Heineken cans).
We had more than enough food to go without buying from the food carts (and I didn't even make the macaroni salad I was planning on making) but we like the food stalls so we bought dinner late each evening from the carts. The first nite we had burritos from the Mexican cart (Gringo Tacos, I think). It was ok but kind of bland compared to Trippy Taco. Their vegan version just involves omitting the sour cream and cheese which makes it a bit dry. You'd think they could add guacamole for free (normally $1 extra) considering they're dropping 2 other ingredients. The next night we got some dumplings after seeing someone walk past us with a plate of them. They tasted even better than they looked! The plate had white rice and a salad that had mint and aniseed-- it was amazing and so full of flavour. The dumplings were really nice too (way better than the frozen ones I've been buying) and the staff were very friendly and helpful showing us the vegan sauces.
Not sure how next year's Golden Plains could top this one.....

dehydrating

2011-03-11T09:59:00.001+11:00

i found a cheap dehydrator with adjustable temperature dial on one of those deals websites after i'd been looking into dehydrators for a few weeks. i'd been trying to find something on the cheaper end of the scale that had adjustable temperatures that i could try out to see how i like dehydrating and maybe eventually,if i'm using it a lot, i'll upgrade to an excalibur model. so far i'm very impressed with our cheap one (i think it was on special for $40 and free shipping-- it did take 2 tries at shipping it to get one that hadn't been dropped or had something fall on it though).
i decided to start with zucchini chips.

i sliced my zucchini very thinly (most sites i looked at said to cut it about 1/4 inch thick but i did mine much thinner using the slicing blade on my food processor). i lightly sprinkled mine with homemade Old Bay seasoning. they only took a few hours before they were dried. they're really tasty too. i've been eating them on their own and with lentil dip.
i also did some tofu jerky using sarah kramer's recipe from how it all vegan (the original pepper jerky)--- sooo yummy. again, i cut my pieces thinner than suggested and it only took a few hours to become tasty jerky (perfect for snacking on at golden plains!).

so far i'm liking my dehydrator a lot (and have a lot more things i want to try with it). i think it's going to be useful with our veggie boxes when we have things that are nearing the end of their life and we haven't used, we'll be able to dehydrate them to either eat them as dehydrated foods or save them for use in soups and baking.

beach trip

2011-03-08T18:14:00.004+11:00

to celebrate our 3rd anniversary last month we went to the beach. we were sad to find out that the holiday house we've stayed at for the past 2 years in barwon heads doesn't seem to be available to rent anymore. we found another pet friendly place in our budget in queenscliff that worked our really well though. another sad thing was the vegetarian cafe place that we had our wedding reception in barwon heads has completely closed down (they were just mostly doing catering and take away on weekends from shortly after our wedding but now its a whole other cafe. we didn't really look at the food there but they did do nice soy coffees (with fair trade coffee).
unfortunately we can't seem to take wombat anywhere with out her sensitive skin acting up (we think she's allergic to the beach-- especially the beaches around melbourne because she's not nearly as bad in paynesville or mallacoota).
poor dog licking/eating her toes:

having fun in the water:

playing ball in the big yard:

being lazy:

yes, our anniversary trip (as always) ended up being about wombat but we wouldn't have it any other way.
it'd be nice if her skin didn't seem to react to everything new. we did bring her vet prescribed cream with us but i don't think it did much. we had some left over meds from last time that we started giving her as soon as we got home and she mostly cleared up in a few days. her back toes are still raw and gross but we're not sure if this is from the beach (almost 2 weeks ago) or if she's irritated them with something else.

attack of the pumpkins

2011-03-08T18:06:00.001+11:00

my garden was a bit neglected this summer. i planted some tomatoes, spinach and spring onion seedlings early in the season and harvested most of those by the end of december. then i kinda forgot about the garden. i haven't watered it or weeded it for a couple months. a couple pumpkin seedlings appeared (i'm guessing from the bokashi compost i buried since i've never planted any kind of pumpkin). soon the pumpkins took over. wombat can't get in the garden anymore. i can't get in the garden anymore:

somewhere under those pumpkins there's a low fence that surrounds the garden. i think the green bin is going to be a challange to get out on its next collection day.

there are also lots of tomatoes that i didn't plant growing amongst the pumpkins too (but i can't get to them to pick them when they ripen).
there's a couple varieties of pumpkins growing too:

i think we'll be eating a lot of pumpkin stews, curries and soups this winter 8)

veggie kitchen

2011-02-24T12:25:00.004+11:00

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

2011-02-16T20:44:00.001+11:00

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

2011-02-01T16:45:00.000+11:00

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

2011-02-01T16:06:00.003+11:00

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.

spices

2011-01-28T15:17:00.003+11:00

I just came across a great website for ordering some of the hard to find spices: Spice Bazaar. Not sure how I've never heard of it before but I'm glad I found it (and just placed an order for Japanese 7 Spice after going to a couple Asian groceries and checking the spices at several other shops and not finding it). It's a Melbourne based company and they do have some of their range of spices at Ishka and other shops around Australia but they offer free shipping on spices anywhere in Australia! I noticed they also had wattleseed which is hard to find (I ended up finding it at the Oxfam shop when I needed it to make wattleseed cashew truffles).

sorting

2011-01-24T14:30:00.002+11:00

We spent most of the weekend going through Zac's nanna's things with the rest of his family. She didn't have a lot of clutter but it's amazing how much stuff is in one small house. There were several large boxes filled with family photos and other keepsakes of that kind, we inherited an organ, a record player and large speakers, a dining room table, wardrobe, night table and kitchen pantry shelving unit (as well as lots of little bits and pieces like some of her Melbourne demons things, kitchen bits and pieces and other little things that remind us of nanna. there's still a LOT of stuff that will be heading off to the op shop even with everyone else taking some of the bits an pieces (we're the only ones who could really take much of the furniture but it's only a few pieces of what’s in the house).
after the amount of sorting we did there it re-motivated me (I would have thought I'd be over it) to do what I've been procrastinating doing this whole 6 week-- organize our house (and now I only have a week left to do it). We have soooooo much clutter and junk that's piled up over the 7 years we've lived here (nanna had lived in her house more than 60 years and I’m sure our junk amounts to a lot more than hers). I had to do a lot of sorting, reorganizing and throwing away in our kitchen just to make the new pantry and table fit. Our spare room (aka "the junk room") is getting fixed up so it's a usable spare room for guests and music room. we've taken a few bags of our stuff to an op shop and I’ve got an old record player and some shelves sitting out front with a free sign hoping someone takes them (otherwise I’ll try freecycle or just make another trip to the op shop).
I’ve started to realize a lot of that stuff that we save because maybe one day it'll be useful just ends up taking up space and never being useful. I think I’ve gotta get better at getting rid of things we don't need (I have issues with throwing things away, even if they're pretty useless to anyone). Hopefully by the time I go back to work next week I’ll be coming home to a nice organized, de-cluttered house.

more vegan yum yum

2011-01-18T14:57:00.000+11:00

i've mentioned it before but i really love my vegan yum yum cookbook that i got for christmas (thanks denise). i decided to make lime peanut noodles with seitan, kale and carrots for lunch today. sooooo good! basically it's noodles in a peanut sauce with kale, carrots and saitan (i used some fake chicken stuff i got from the asian supermarket at barkley square) but the sauce is amazing- lots of fresh lime juice in it as well as soy sauce, peanut butter, chili and ginger. poor wombat was a little concerned how much my lunch smelled like her peanut butter (we put a bit of peanut butter in her kong most days before we leave the house so she gets confused any time we're eating things that have peanut butter in them).
next up to make from the cookbook is nearly raw tahini noodles which also sound amazing.

too much caffeine??

2011-01-07T16:33:00.000+11:00

this spider web is in the top corner of our kitchen window (this is the best photo i could get in the awkward place it was but the whole web looks like the bit you can see against the dark window sill background). i think the spider may have had some coffee before making this (if you google images of "spider web caffeine" it shows drawings and images of spiders affected by various drugs- the caffeine one looks a lot like this).

rice paper rolls

2011-01-07T16:14:00.001+11:00

this was a perfect lunch for a hot day today. i made these a lot the last month or so of last term (i was pretty rushed to ride home, make them, eat them and ride back to work but so worth it) and haven't made them at all over my break (when i actually have time to get everything organized and put them together). i put cucumber, red capsicum, rice noodles, mint leaves and sometimes avocado in my rice paper rolls. i use the dipping sauce from this web page (although i usually just put a little spoonful of the sauce in the rice paper roll as i'm putting the other ingredients in). my wrapping isn't great (i think it's more just getting the sheet of rice paper to be smoothed out flat before i start putting things on it) but they hold together well, even if they don't look pretty.

fried "chicken"

2011-01-03T19:59:00.002+11:00

i've been meaning to make "jay-lo's fried 'chicken'" from la dolce vegan! for a long time now and i finally got around to it today. making the gluten mock chicken takes time (about an hour or so) but it's all really easy. it looks scarily like some kind of real meat but tastes really good (all the different spices used in making the mock chicken and then in the flour coating used before frying). i wish i'd had some potatoes to go with the chicken (i did have a salad while i was waiting for the chicken to simmer).
i've still got half the chicken that i made since zac wasn't home for dinner so we may have it again later this week (or i could freeze it for another time). next time i do one of the mock meats (there's also faux fish, sausage and turkey that i want to try) i might double the recipe,and then freeze most of it because you need to simmer the gluten flour in the spice broth for about an hour and usually when i decide to cook dinner i want to be eating in no more than 30 minutes or so.

hot and cold

2011-01-03T12:30:00.000+11:00

loved that we just had that one day of 40C (and it was pleasant outside by 9:30 or so-- made the ride home from moonee ponds at 1:30am much nicer than the ride out). i'm actually a little bit cold right now so i'm wearing a thin fleece hoodie and jeans. i like when melbourne's weather goes up and down like this (although it'd be just perfect if it stayed around 25-30C everyday and only went down to about 18C overnite). i definitely prefer this cool weather over vancouver right now (-4 to 1C and the sunsets at 4:30pm!)

melbourne's weird weather

2010-12-31T14:27:00.001+11:00

click to see a larger version of the image.
we've had a pretty mild (and wet) summer so far this year. today it's suddenly jumped to the high 30s (supposed to hit 40C this arvo) with possible thunder storms later on. for the past 5 or 6 years new years eve has been quite warm even when the rest of the week has been cooler. really weird how it's always so warm for the night where a lot of people have plans to be outdoors (although last year i think the rain started before midnite and the lightning was more impressive than the fireworks that we watched from our friends second floor bedroom window). i like the hot new year's eve weather (but hoping the storms hold off til early morning). tomorrow is supposed to go back to being just mildly warm again.

creamy pasta

2010-12-30T19:47:00.000+11:00

i got the vegan yum yum cookbook for christmas. i didn't realize until afterwards that i have made a couple things from her blog and i have a lot of her recipes bookmarked (for some reason i don't actually have her blog on my feed reader-- i think i may have to add it). tonite i made my first dish from the cookbook: super quick tomato basil cream pasta. so yummy (anything with tomato and basil in it is gonna be good) and so easy. i liked that this cream sauce was made with cashews. next time zac makes his creamy sun dried tomato sauce with gnocchi i'm gonna try to convince him to try cashews (he usually uses a huge amount of tofu and soy milk or occasionally cauliflower and soy milk).

grumpy's again

2010-12-30T10:22:00.003+11:00

zac's adamant that every bar in north fitzroy and fitzroy are shut this week (even walking past all the open places didn't help change is opinion-- him and his co-workers had a hard time finding a place open christmas eve afternoon so he's sure everything is shut for weeks). we knew that grumpy's was open because we'd ended up there randomly the day before so we told some friends to meet us there yesterday (after first telling them the pinacle but discovering it was shut for the week). we ended up staying there for dinner (most of the time we just get snacks when we go there). i wasn't sure how vegan their mains are because the menu has changed since the last time we ate a meal there. turns out about half of the mains (not including the pizzas) are vegan. i got the tagine and couscous, zac got stir fry and the 2 friends who stayed to eat got pizzas (unfortunately i forgot to take photos). everyone said their food was really good. the pizzas came out on small wooden chopping boards and were piled high with veggies. zac's stir fry bowl looked really nice with the broccoli and other greens sprinkled with sesame seeds. my tagine and couscous dish came with the couscous in the middle with the really nicely flavoured tagine (chickpeas, pumpkin, zucchini and some other veggies) circled around the couscous. the only problem zac and i had was that our dishes weren't that big enough(not sure how our friends felt after their pizzas-- they weren't large but did look substantial). for $15 i'd expect a meal to fill me up a bit more than it did (especially when the section of the menu it's listed in is labeled "large meals". maybe in the future we'll just stick to the snacks (or eat a meal if we just want a lighter meal). grumpy's is great for their small, sunny back courtyard and lots of really good local beers (a friend pointed out too that on their extensive beer list it lists how many kms the beer travelled from the brewery to grumpy's).
Grumpy's Green
125 Smith St
Fitzroy

christmas food

2010-12-27T10:56:00.003+11:00

we had a really nice christmas lunch at my sister in law's place in their newly finished outdoor entertainment area. there were more vegan options than non-vegan options i think (everything in the photo except the dish of chicken/turkey--not sure which it was--was vegan). we made some sushi and some chickpea salad (from la dolce vegan-- it's easy and really tasty) and zac's mum made her vegan nut loaf that she always does (soooooo good-- tastes like stuffing which was always the best part of the meal even when i ate meat) and some potato salad (potatoes coated in fresh herbs from her garden). the green salad was also vegan (we went to a chirstmas thing last week where the 2 or 3 green salads all had eggs or cheese in them) with homemade vegan dressing too.

for dessert i decided to attempt a chocolate almond cheezcake from the ultimate uncheese cookbook.

i was a little worried the middle was never going to harden (we had to cook it 80 minutes instead of 60 and it was still kind of jello like but i think that's just the way our oven works). once it cooled it was perfect (i think the outer edges were slightly overcooked but not bad). i thought about making a chocolate sauce to drizzle over it but never got around to it. it's pretty amazing tasting too. the only sweetener in the cake is maple syrup (a LOT of maple syrup). the crust i made also had maple syrup in it. i decided to use the fake maple flavoured stuff for the crust and for about 1/2 the amount in the cake (that used up one entire bottle of the stuff). then i used some of our good maple syrup from canada to complete the amount needed. it worked out well (you could probably substitute the whole amount with the fake stuff if you wanted to). the teasecake doesn't have that cream cheese aftertaste that real cheesecake does but it did have an amazing chocolate and almond flavour (i may cut down slightly on the almond essence if i make it again).

we're still happily eating away at the leftover nut loaf and cheezcake.

mueslimixer

2010-12-24T10:41:00.006+11:00

way back in november i won a mueslimixer competition for a $20 voucher. i was so busy i didn't actually find out i won until a week later because i hadn't checked the email account i used and i was really behind on reading blogs (where the winners were announced). i'd entered mostly to get zac some nice muesli since he eats it every morning and he has been trying to find one he really likes since he stopped buying uncle toby's muesli.
we finally ordered a couple weeks ago. i let zac go through and choose his ingredients. then i went and made my own mix with the left over voucher money and a bit extra.
i loved being able to customize my own muesli. i made my mix with the seeedalicious base, mulberries, blueberries and flaked almonds (soooo good with yogurt). Zac's mix was the 3 grain base, cranberries, blueberries, apricots, gojiberries, toasted almonds and coconut. each of our mixes come in a resealable plastic bag and includes the nutrition facts and the individual mix identification number for easy reordering. it's a bit expensive to do all the time. our 2 450g mixes plus shipping (which i didn't realize at the time but i happened to order during a 4 day $1.99 shipping anywhere in australia promotion, usually shipping is between $5.49-9.99 depending on how many bags you order-- orders can also be picked up from a place in Carlton for only $1) cost about $25. it was a really nice treat though and we'll probably order from them again.

never again

2010-12-24T10:05:00.001+11:00

most years my work gets a live tree for the kids to decorate during their last few weeks of kinder. after the year is done one of the staff usually takes it home. nobody else in our room wanted our tree and i did so i ended up taking it home. zac was very against this mostly because it involved him getting the work car to help me transport it home (2 years ago a few of us walked the tree and some giant pot plants 250m up the road to a workmate that lived that close to kinder. the car is a much better option, especially cuz its 1500m to our house). a few days after getting the tree home (and yes, it is leaning to the left because whoever put it in the base for us put it in crooked and i couldn't be bothered to fix it at work or at home) i noticed a spider web from the star to branches near the top. when i had a closer look i found hundreds of little baby spiders crawling up and down the line. i took the star outside with a lot of spiders on it and then sprayed the top of the tree with soapy water and a mix of water and eucalyptus oil (not very vegan of me). there's a lot less spiders now but i'm sure the first time we turn on the central heating in winter dozens of spiders are going to shoot out of the vent next to the tree.
i also had issues with the lites. i have 2 sets that i use on our tree. a couple days after i put up this live tree (and took down the fake one i already had up) one of the 2 lite sets blew up so only half the tree was lit. i managed to find a new set of just plain yellow toned fairy lites after looking in kmart and a few $2 shops. i took apart the tree (the second time i've taken apart a tree at this point) to get the new lite set on. i carefully put all my delicate ornaments along the wall near the tree. as i was taking the other ornaments off a little wooden duck ornament fell and landed directly on my favourite ornament (a large ball painted with maple leafs and "canada" written on it-- my mom gave it to me the year she was here for christmas)and smashed the back out of it. i've managed to tape the 5 pieces back on but they don't fit nicely in the hole and i'm scared that if i push to hard i'll completely smash it. my mom spent yesterday trying to find me a new one in the tourist-y shops (she can't remember which one she got it at).
next year i'm going to stick to my fake tree which is less likely to have baby insects living on it, and won't require me to re-decorate multiple times and i'll have less chance of breaking special ornaments (but i won't have that nice pine smell in the house).

DONE!!!

2010-12-18T09:51:00.003+11:00

we finished for the year yesterday!!!! 6 weeks off!!! of course i managed to wake up with a cold on the last day (it was our clean up day though so at least i didn't have to deal with children when i wasn't feeling 100%). it meant i didn't get to celebrate the end as much as i wanted. we were all exhausted at our end of year lunch at C.E.R.E.S. (and probably really quiet for a table of 12) and the one beer i had made me want to just go to bed (i struggled keeping my eyes open walking home and curled up in bed as soon as i got home). i never even opened my mini bottle of sparkling wine i had been saving for yesterday.
after i recover from the end of year work stuff and this cold i'll have lots of time and energy to make some of the good food i've been waning to make for a while (vegan cheesecake, some ethiopian foods, more homemade cheeze, salsa, refried beans and other foods i used to make all the time until i got too tired from work).

Eggless nog

2010-12-12T21:23:00.002+11:00

Eggnog isn't really big in Australia. Most people have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention it. You can get it in some supermarkets over Christmas but it's not vegan so I have to make my own without the eggs and cream. Fortunately there's a good recipe in how it all vegan. Tonight I made my first batch of the season. It does have a bit of a soy taste from the tofu but I think I remember from last year the soy taste was less the next day. It is really good though even with a bit of soy taste.

mallacoota

2010-12-04T09:27:00.006+11:00

last weekend we went to mallacoota with zac's mum (she has been raving about it for ages so we finally made the effort to get out there-- soooooo worth the long drive).
wombat had the best weekend ever! she has never been able to run so free on a beach before usually when we let her off near barwon heads we play sort of "pig in the middle" fetch with her and we're constantly watching for other dogs. here there were beaches enclosed by high cliffs with only one set of stairs coming down and rocks going out into the water to keep her from running off forever. she got to run and chase crabs and swim.

(click on the photo to see it more clearly-- the top left picture of wombat is pretty funny)
we found a great, warm river to swim in at one beach so we took wombat in there and discovered she can swim better than we thought she could but she is pretty top heavy and struggles a bit with it. she would go swimming for a stick though.
i love pelicans:

so amazing something that big can actually fly (and do it gracefully).
we stayed at the adobe mudbrick flats. zac's mum had stayed there several times before. it's a pretty amazing place. we tried to get the penthouse but it was already booked so we stayed in one of the other units. floor to ceiling windows overlooking the ocean with a large bird feeder and tons of seed. the mudbrick walls had bottles embedded in them to make great designs.

wombat enjoyed spending her time watching the wildlife (the place is very wildlife friendly as well as pet friendly). she loved the watching the brown antechinuses (a marsupial mouse). she also enjoyed bird watching.

just some of the many birds we saw from our window:

wombat was exhausted after her weekend of running on the beaches, swimming and animal watching. i came back feeling much more relaxed and ready to face the few busy weeks of work before i have 6 weeks off for summer.

only annoying thing that happened was my camera lens decided it was no longer going to auto focus for me (i think it's the motor in it) so it made it really hard to take action shots (i have lots of great shots of wombat running but she's blurry). fortunately i have an old (not quite as nice) lens from the camera zac drowned a few years ago so i can use that until i can find out how much it's gonna cost to fix the better lens.

coffee chocolate

2010-11-22T19:57:00.001+11:00

zac found this chocolate in the IGA on brunswick street the other day:

can't get much better than coffee and chocolate mixed together. it didn't last very long. it was on sale 2 for $5 (i think regular price was $3.50). zac chose a mint chocolate one for the other one of the 2 we bought. i don't really care for mint and chocolate though so he'll probably have that one for himself. there was an orange chocolate one available too. i may have to somehow find time to go back there and get the orange chocolate one and another coffee one. soooo good.

random dinners

2010-11-11T17:42:00.000+11:00

i found a few pictures on my camera from the last couple weeks. the first (not very good one) is a really good Asian inspired soup that zac makes when he doesn't feel like cooking:

it always involves dried mushrooms, noodles (often the fried ones) and tofu puffs or dried soybean chunks. he sometimes adds in seaweed pieces and mushroom fluff. he serves it up in massive bowls with a fork and a spoon.

i finally remembered to take a photo of my fajita filling (but not the finished wrap or table layout):

the picture above was the first time i'd tried tempeh in the mixture. i usually use imitation chicken or tofu. i really liked the tempeh though. i base my fajita filling on this recipe. we use either homemade sour cream (from La Dolce Vegan) or tofutti and then have salsa and sometimes guacamole to top our fajitas with. they're great served with margaritas.

i also found a picture of our lazy-ass, couch hogging dog:

now that it's warming up she likes to sprawl across the whole couch (kicking us with her back legs if we're in her way) instead of curling up in a little ball in one corner. she's lucky she's cute.

Loving Hut and Cheesecake

2010-11-07T19:41:00.003+11:00

when we heard this afternoon that loving hut had opened yesterday we decided to head down there for an early dinner. being newly opened, the staff were a bit confused about what they had available but they did produce a picture menu with about 10 items to choose from and told us about a couple other choices available. we chose 3 items then we were told we could also get dumplings so we added that. my photos aren't great because i kept forgetting to take them until after we'd put the food on our individual plates and started eating.
first we had crispy delight (a mock seafood dish that was really tasty):

we had to order the dish called "happy dance" (how can you go past a dish with that name plus it involved sesame and seaweed and you can't really go wrong with that):

we had a large plate of dumplings with sweet chili sauce:

and a plate of seasonal vegetables (cabbage, carrots and mushrooms seasoned with salt and pepper)

i was full when we finished (zac wasn't but its gotta be an extra large meal to fill him). the meal (with green tea) came to $49 for the two of us. we will go back again once they're more settled in (shop 10, 242 victoria st, richmond).

yesterday zac wanted to get a tuna wrap from yong green food (i think it's his favourite thing about brunswick st. right now). i'd already eaten so i decided to have some dessert: raw blueberry cheesecake.

it had a nut and seed based crust and the "cheese" part was coconut based. it was soooo smooth and creamy. they also have strawberry, chocolate and coconut cheesecakes.

vege2go

2010-10-27T17:47:00.000+11:00

i just found this photo on my phone from a couple weeks ago (not a great photo either). we hadn't been to vege2go for ages cuz i find the food kind of bland (except the garlic tossed broccoli, i really like that) and it seems a bit pricey for what it is. we were walking past one day and zac decided we needed to have lunch there (he really likes it). he got the vegan lasagne and i just got a serve of the celery and bean salad (i'd had a big breakfast). they messed up and brought both items on one plate with a spare plate for us to share with. this worked out well cuz i ended up having a small part of zac's lasagne (and he got a bit of salad). i don't know if they've changed something about the lasagne but i really liked it. the bean salad was really nice too with lots of flavour. we didn't get any dessert (i didn't really care for the vegan tiramisu we had once) but i just looked at their online menu and noticed they have a vegan cheesecake. i think i have to try it. i'm glad zac convinced me to try the place again. now i might be more up for it when he suggests it for a quick dinner (i thought he might offer to get something from there tonite since he'll be nearby and we need to have something quick and easy). he didn't say anything so i decided use the coriander pesto that i made last week and we'll have pasta with a bit of salad (if i get around to throwing the salad together before he gets home).

quesadillas

2010-10-24T09:25:00.004+11:00

i think i've found my favourite quesadilla ingredients: refried beans using cannellini beans, homemade fresh salsa, vegan nacho cheeze and avocado to top it off. sooooooo good.
i make refried beans using a simple recipe from Hot Damn and Hell Yeah:

3 c canned beans (1 can has 1 1/2 cups so i either half the recipe or use 2 cans, if i use cooked dried beans i usually add a bit more salt)
1 1/2 cups water
1 Tbsp onion powder
1/2 tsp salt (slightly more if using cooked dried beans)

simmer all ingredients uncovered on stove until most of the water is gone then mash with potato masher

my fresh salsa is:

3 tomatoes (seeded and diced)
small amount of onion (yellow or purple)-- about 1/4-1/2 an onion
about 1/4 cup chopped coriander leaves
salt and pepper to taste
lemon or lime juice
1-2 cloves garlic minced
optional chilli

mix all ingredients and let flavours blend for at least an hour or so before using.

the cheeze is from happy herbivore. i found the printed off recipe in my recipe book but i'd never used it before until a couple weeks ago. i'm really liking cheezes that use miso in them right now.

pumpkin

2010-10-16T12:34:00.000+11:00

we went to empire cafe for lunch yesterday to try out some more of their new vegan menu. i did take a couple photos but we were in the back room and it was dark and i didn't put the flash on so i have a couple dark blurry photos of sandwiches which i won't bother putting up. i got the vegan pumpkin sandwich (roasted pumpkin strips, vegan cheese and spinach-- there were supposed to be pine nuts as well but the supplier hadn't arrived yet with them. it was still really good even without the pine nuts). it was exactly what i wanted for lunch on a cold, wet day. zac went with the vegan blt and a side of wedges. he really enjoyed that. it ended up costing us $33 for lunch and 2 coffees (and one was free with the last free coffee on my punch card they no longer do). seems a bit pricey for a couple toasted sandwiches, a side of wedges and coffee but it was really filling. and really good.
we were at the supermarket later in the afternoon and i saw this:
i wonder how many people actually buy "halloween pumpkins" for $3.98/kg (there was a kid begging his dad to buy one as i was taking this photo. dad wouldn't give in though). i said to zac, if this was north america it wouldn't just be 8 pumpkins on a little table display but it would be anywhere from 3-8 gigantic (hot tub sized) boxes out front of the supermarket where you could get pumpkins of every size (and i'm sure they must cost a lot less-- i never really priced pumpkins in canada). halloween does seem to be getting slightly bigger here (even over the past 7 years i've been here).

fear of germs

2010-10-15T10:34:00.003+11:00

i don't know why but for some reason advertisements for cleaning products annoy me more than any other ad. on tv. especially the ones where it's a mother saying how she doesn't want her children exposed to germs that may be on the kitchen counter, the sofa cushions or, heaven forbid, in the toilet bowl so she likes to spray chemicals which claim to kill 99.9% germs on these things and let her family be exposed to those instead. i don't know why those ads bother me more than other ads which are also using fear of something to get people to buy a product but they do. why don't people realize, most germs aren't going to harm most people and that breathing in or ingesting chemicals from cleaning products is likely to have some negative reaction in a person's body (even if it does happen slowly over many years)?

rain. and more rain.

2010-10-15T10:32:00.000+11:00

somewhere under all that rain is melbourne and 128km of it's surrounds. so much for the great spring weather we've had most of the past 2 weeks. zac and i did have plans to spend our friday off doing something fun. i kinda just wanna curl up on the couch with movies and food now (and zac's still in bed).

tuna

2010-10-12T20:06:00.000+11:00

zac insisted we go to yong green food for lunch the other day because he had gone there earlier in the week and had the tuna wrap and really wanted another one cuz it was so good. they've changed their menu a bit since the last time we were there (i think it was at least a few months ago). i wasn't that hungry when we got there so i just got a light lunch of rice paper rolls. they were really nice. for some reason i really didn't like the smell of the chili dipping sauce they come with but the flavour was nice. zac got the tuna wrap that he was craving (i think it replaces the fishball wrap they used to have on the menu-- i don't think that was still offered). i managed to get a bite of it and really liked it. lots of flavour with a slight "fishy" sort of taste. they've got a good selection of dishes of all sizes at yong green and most are vegan (or can be made vegan). it's a good place for a snack or meal on brunswick street (and much healthier/tastier than the chips we would end up getting if we stopped at a pub for a drink and snack).

munster haus

2010-10-07T17:23:00.000+11:00

we've been going to munster haus (on the corner of barkley st and st. georges rd.) for lunch pretty much any time zac has a day off when i'm working. there's always lots of good choices for food. some days have more vegan choices than others (today the only non-vegan things were pizza and a quinoa dish that had some butter in it). i skipped getting rice in the bottom of my bowl since there were so many other things i wanted to try today. i got an eggplant miso dish (on the bottom of my bowl so it isn't in the photo). on top of that was some marinated tofu with salad, a rice dish (i can't remember what was in it), a sweet potato noodle dish with sesame dressing (my favourite dish-- can't go wrong with sesame flavour) and some broccoli and marinated tempeh (i think i've had the broccoli dish every time i've been there-- it's good). all the dishes are so full of flavour. i usually get the $8 bowl for lunch and it's a good, filling lunch. zac either goes for $8 or $11 bowl depending how hungry he is.

style

2010-10-02T12:40:00.001+10:00

the first homemade magarita of the spring is always done in style with a proper glass (i LOVE these glasses, we were given them at our wedding. i'm so scared of breaking them though). after we get more into the warm weather home made magaritas will likely be served from the pastic-jug-with-a-handle-style cup it was blended up in.

bagels

2010-10-02T12:23:00.001+10:00

yesterday i made bagels for the first time. i followed theresa's recipe. they're pretty easy and they taste really good (i think better than the ones that i've been buying). i used molasses instead of treacle (some websites say they can be used interchangeably in recipes, others say they can't). it worked fine. i just added a few sunflower seeds to this batch during the mixing/kneading process in the bread maker. next time i might coat them with toasted sesame seeds or maybe dukkah (which theresa recommends). i like my bagels fairly plain because i make sandwiches with them (today i had avocado and homegrown sprouts).

belly tanning

2010-10-01T15:17:00.000+10:00

wombat enjoying some belly tanning time in the backyard (that pink belly will be black soon):

i think spring has finally arrived (only a month late)!!!

crêpes

2010-10-01T10:50:00.002+10:00

last weekend i decided to make crêpes. they were so good i made them again this morning. i got the recipe from here. i've been filling them with things like berries, jam, chocolate spread and almond butter. we had a norwegian nanny for about a year when i was little and she used to make norwegian pancakes (which are basically crêpes). we would fill them with jam or a spoonful of sugar or some fruit canned in syrup and top them with whipped cream. it seems really funny to me now that we used these fillings when we had them served for breakfast or a breakfast-at-dinnertime meal but they were SOOOOO good (and we only had them every once in a while).

waste

2010-09-30T12:19:00.000+10:00

that's our stack of phone books for last year and this year (not sure why last year's are still around-- this year's have been sitting by the front door since they were delivered several months ago). most of the ones that came wrapped in plastic are still wrapped (i think i unwrapped last year's white pages to look up one number probably before we got our new computer and the old computer took up to 30 min or more to get it started). i finally took 2 seconds to see how i could stop getting the phone books delivered and it's sooooooo easy. wish i had done it a long time ago. just go to this link. you just need to fill in your details and mark the phone books you want to stop delivery of (i stopped them all). hopefully i've done it in time to stop the delivery of the 2011 books. i feel bad about just chucking them all in the recycle bin but so far i haven't come up with any other use for them.

scamming

2010-09-29T16:49:00.002+10:00

i got a phone call this morning from someone claiming to be from microsoft trying to tell me there was something wrong with my computer and he needed to fix it and would walk me through the steps over the phone. sounded completely ridiculous to me cuz i'm pretty sure no where have we listed our home phone number with any sort of registration of our computer. i was pretty sure it was a scam when he said something like "...and it will shut down your whole computer. you don't want that, do you?" he started to tell me to press some buttons to help fix the problem but i just hung up on him. after doing a bit of a google search, turns out it was a scam. here's an article from the age a couple months ago. if i did think there was something wrong on our computer i would be either getting a friend in IT to help or taking it to a computer repair place, not taking advice from someone who called me. i guess there are people who would just assume it's legitimate though.

chick cheez

2010-09-28T17:23:00.000+10:00

i decided to make a cheeze spread yesterday. i opened up my uncheese cookbook to the front section where the spreads are and this was the first recipe i saw. on the side panel it's described as a "tangy" cheez with a "sharp, cheddary flavour." sounded good so i made it. it is amazing. most homemade cheezes i've tried are fairly mild. this one has a really nice sharp flavour (like aged cheddar) from the miso in it. vegan guinea pig posts the recipe here. the recipe also suggests making it into a sauce by thinning it with some nondairy milk-- it'd probably be really nice over broccoli or other veggies. i think this cheeze may end up being something i make often.

only in oz

2010-09-26T13:51:00.003+10:00

so the AFL grand final went pretty much the same way as the election: nobody won. i think that's gotta be the only major sporting league in the world that a final game can end in a tie and "see you again next week for a rematch"
the up side is that next week we'll be able to watch the game at a pub with some friends. this week zac had a gig so i watched it at home and then ran up to the gig as soon as the game was over.

thai pumpkin

2010-09-21T19:01:00.000+10:00

we got our veggie box today. it contained a large amount of coriander so i figured i should try to use as much as i can in the next couple days. i made some fresh salsa this afternoon and decided on thai pumpkin soup for dinner (there was also some pumpkin and ginger in the box and i had some chilies in the garden). i used this recipe for the soup. i love the flavours of ginger, chili and coriander together and it was quick and easy to make.

grumpy's

2010-09-18T17:56:00.003+10:00

we ended up at grumpy's green for lunch today. they've changed their menu since last time we were there for a meal (it's been a while). the menu was much more vegan friendly than it used to be and everything that is vegan/can be made vegan is clearly marked (and gluten free items are marked as well). we sat up in the dimly lit closet upstairs so i couldn't get a decent picture of our food (i don't like using the flash). i had the chickpea and lentil dahl with naan bread which was really nice. the dahl was fairly spicy--i like it hot--and the bread was good too. zac had the tower burger-- it was a tower. zac was a little worried how he was gonna manage to get it in his mouth but he did it (after a bit of squashing). it looked really good-- tons of vegies sticking out. i loved the chips (i think crinkle cut just makes them taste better--or maybe it was just the salt-- but i couldn't stop picking at zac's chips). i love all the little things grumpy's does to be sustainable (local beer and wine, vegetarian menu with locally sourced ingredients and more). there were several things on the menu i wanna try so hopefully we'll get back there soon.

uncheese

2010-09-12T10:21:00.005+10:00

i bought myself The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook as a birthday gift to me from the book depository. sooo many fun, "cheesy" recipes to try! i finally got around to making a couple things from the book this past week (i kept forgetting to buy more onion powder and almost everything i wanted to try required it). i made chickpea flour pizza (which is more of a herbed, gluten free flat bread) for a snack the other day (forgot to take a picture) and i really liked it. that was the first thing i've ever made with chickpea flour and i've been meaning to buy and make things with it for a LONG time. yesterday afternoon i decided to make french onion soup. i couldn't get a good photo though (i think it's almost impossible to get a good looking photo of a brown soup with cream coloured "cheese" goo on top). it was really good though. i added a vegan beef stock cube (cuz they've just been sitting there for a while not being used). we didn't have french bread or croutons so i lightly toasted some multigrain bread and cut it into cubes. i think next i'll try one of the "cheese" dips. so far i'm really enjoying the book.

spring!!

2010-09-05T17:27:00.001+10:00

i was sorting through my pictures on my phone and came across this one i took a week or 2 ago at work. my phone takes great pictures outdoors (not quite as good indoors with low light but still ok). it's a very "spring-y"shot. we have lots of these flowers at work. i'm gonna try to take some cuttings and propagate them for our garden at home (not sure yet where to put them in our garden because they grow to be a fairly large bush with lots of daisies but i'll find a spot).

lazy

2010-09-03T10:03:00.000+10:00

this is what my lazy beast gets up to on my RDOs:

she gets up around 8am with zac to go for a walk and have breakfast then she crawls back into bed with me. i'm usually pretty awake by this point (zac's alarm goes off at least 5 or 6 times before he gets up) so i get up and the beast stays in bed. often she'll stay there until i get ready to leave the house (which in winter sometimes it's after noon cuz i can't be bothered to go out into the cold morning unless i have a good reason). i'm sure she would do this every morning if we let her but she's banned from settling in the bedroom without supervision (she likes to "fluff" the sheets and doona with her claws before settling. we have only 1 fitted sheet left that doesn't have a tear in it). once she's settled and going to sleep she's fine.

birthday dinners

2010-08-31T20:47:00.003+10:00

after reading meveg's post on the abyssinian last week i decided that's where i wanted to have my birthday dinner last nite. i don't think i'd ever had ethiopian food before. i loved it. unfortunately i didn't get any photos cuz zac was "starving" and if i didn't dig in i would miss out. we got the same as meveg (chef's vegetarian combo for 2) and there's some good photos over there. when i mentioned to friends and workmates that we were doing ethiopian food for my birthday dinner, everyone's response was "the bread is amazing! i love the bread!" the bread was pretty good (and kinda fun to use instead of cutlery for eating). i also had an ethiopian beer with my meal too (Dashen Lager)-- it was really nice.
i wanted to get some EBC cheesecake after but we were both too full. we went home, i had a bath and we both relaxed for a bit and i decided i needed a birthday cheesecake. after some convincing, i got zac to get dressed again and take me for cheesecake at the east brunswick club. soooooo worth going back out in the cool evening for it. i got a slice of peanut butter cheesecake(soooo good!). zac got the chocolate mint one which i didn't really care for but i don't really like mint chocolate (he liked it and that's what's important).
today i got to celebrate day 2 of my birthday (the best part about living here, being born in canada-- i can convince people to celebrate 2 days with me. once when the date here matches my birthday and again when its actually my birth date in canada). we went to haskins/north fitzroy arms for dinner. i got the same as i always get (i think it's the only vegan-izable main but i love it): eggplant parma minus the cheese. it's done really nicely with chopped tomato and onions on top of the well cooked, tender eggplant. it comes with a big salad and some chips. yum.
too bad my birthday is done with now and we'll have to go back to doing some cooking at home.

the box is always better than the toy

2010-08-25T17:30:00.003+10:00

we ordered wombat a new bed and it came in the mail today. we decided to let her open the box herself:

(note in the video that she's really good at chewing off pieces and spitting them out. she doesn't eat them at all. she does this with everything she chews).

when the hole got big enough for her to get her mouth in the box we realized it probably wasn't a good idea to let her open this box since the contents weren't for tearing apart. we took it off her and took the bed out. she was still crazy excited so we kept her away for a minute.

when we put the bed and the box down she did this:

she couldn't care less about her new fuzzy bed with the removable cover for easy washing. the box is much more fun.

food and flowers

2010-08-24T19:21:00.000+10:00

we got our first veggie box through CERES food connect (organic, local produce) today:

i'm impressed. the photo doesn't show all the food, just a sample of each kind. we got a small veggie box ($25). it included things like celery, pumpkin, cabbage, potatoes, radishes, beetroot, broccoli, cauliflower, silverbeet, onions, shallots, potatoes, carrots, turnip, parsnip, carrots and mushrooms. they also do fruit boxes and mixed fruit and veggie boxes. You can also get a few extras like rice and corn cakes, soy milk (although we get the same stuff delivered to our door for less through aussie farmers), organic oats and some other non-vegan things like eggs and honey. my work has just signed up to be a "cousin city" (pickup point) so it's super easy for me to get my food (just bring 2 pannier bags on tuesdays). we're a private pick up point for families at kinder only since we can't really have strangers coming in to pick up boxes with children in the building but it's a good way for families to eat local organic produce.

this photo was from a spontaneous happy hour i decided we needed to have a couple weeks ago (i think we need to do this more often):

clockwise from the top left side is bread pieces and olive oil (for the dukkah), crackers, hummous, vegan shitake mushroom pate (i can't remember the brand but you can get it at the organic shop at the north end of lygon st and possibly at radical grocery(?)-- it was really good, homemade dukkah from this recipe. we had homebrew to drink (possibly a pale ale made from coopers homebrew).

oatmeal date nut muffins:

so good! i halved the recipe and made mini muffins. i wished i'd done the full recipe (and i should have done full sized muffins because i've eaten them 3-5 at a time). the recipe is here.

my citizenship plant (the one i got at my citizenship ceremony last year) opened it's first flower today! i haven't killed it yet!

i can't remember what kind of flower it is (something native that has a bit of a kangaroo paw plant shape).

melbourne drivers

2010-08-22T09:57:00.002+10:00

i think i've posted about melbourne drivers a couple times. this article sums up my thoughts nicely. i do like his term "vehicular dickheaditis" and i'm pretty sure it actually exists. i've seen zac (who is usually quite aware of what of other people and fairly giving) get behind the wheel and become an egocentric warrior focused on cars owning the road and the car he's driving being the most important of all. it's pretty shocking. the article is entertaining though.

bugs

2010-08-17T07:12:00.002+10:00

not the crawly kind of bugs but illness "bugs". there seem to be a lot of them going around here: the flu, some gastro thing, conjunctivitis,.... last week we had at least 3 or 4 kids a day that were away sick and a few that definitly weren't 100%. 2 of the 4 staff in my room also were out with things half the week and the 2 of us left were struggling. i think my body just gave up on friday (i had been going to bed at 8:30 and then 7:30 and still waking up really tired in the morning). i tried to go into work knowing it was likely we were down 2 staff and i was scared the 3rd either would be out too (so we would need one person who knew the families and children) or she would be there and not doing great so it would be better for her to work with me than a reliever so i went in. i realized part way through the morning that i wasn't gonna make it until 4pm. i couldn't say i was sick. i didn't feel sick in any way. i was just really tired. the director was already covering for 1 of the 2 people in our room cuz the agency was out of relievers so we ended up working it out so the poor reliever got an early lunch (i needed to be there to keep the ratio up) and then i left after that. i just came home and layed on the couch, watched dvds and took a nap. i spent the weekend doing very little and now i'm fine. everyone at work kept asking how i was doing yesterday and said that i hadn't looked good on friday. they all figured i got really sick like everyone else after i went home. unless one of the bugs is just extreme tiredness (we did have a little girl on friday who said "i don't want to play anything, i just want to go to sleep" and then 10 minutes later fell asleep at a table-- she didn't have a temperature or anything, she just didn't look great and went to sleep) i think my body was just over the hard week and gave up for a day to make me rest. if i wasn't actually sick (and if i was it was definitely milder than what everyone else seems to have gotten) it means i still haven't been sick with even a cold in about 1 1/2 years (since i recovered from pneumonia and the 5 or 4 other flu and cold illnesses i had that year). i went vegan round that time too.

enchiladas

2010-08-14T17:46:00.001+10:00

i decided to make enchiladas the other day so i did an internet search for a vegan recipe and ended up going with this one. i think the name got me: time crunch vegan enchiladas. makes them sound really easy-- and they were pretty easy. i doubled the recipe and ended up with 5 enchiladas which fit perfectly into the baking dish i had. i really liked the cheese sauce made with hummus, milk and nooch.
i'll be making these again. (my picture is pretty unappetizing looking so take a look at the good photos at the link to the recipe)

no longer exciting

2010-08-10T12:31:00.000+10:00

i used to get excited every time we had a grey, rainy, "vancouver-like" day in melbourne. i'm over it now. i just want some sun. our poor dog is curled up in bed and probably hasn't moved from a couple minutes after zac left her this morning (she's lucky today--we've been banning her from the bedroom lately when we aren't with her because she tore up a few sheets with her claws while "fluffing" our bed into a little nest). i wish i could just curl up with her for the rest of the afternoon.

fabulous feast

2010-08-08T13:12:00.003+10:00

i had to go to a conference for work all day yesterday on sustainability in early childhood education. this was put on by the EEEC (environmental education in early childhood). the menu was completely vegetarian (because it is a more sustainable diet) but i wasn't sure if the director had put me down as vegan when she booked me in. i emailed the woman organizing the conference a couple days before and i was assured that "a fabulous vegan and vegetarian feast will be had by all." i was very impressed with the food (especially since the last EEEC conference i went to with a vegetarian menus the vegans got salad for lunch, everyone else got wraps that only had cheese that made it non vegan). i think i may have been the only vegan there (out of about 70 people) but the vegan food was plentiful and put out for everyone to have. morning tea was wraps and sandwiches (half vegan, half vegetarian, clearly labeled which were which kind). lunch involved 2 soups (both vegan and really good!), a couple salads (an amazing carrot salad with a really nice spicy chili dressing) and some rolls.
i had a work fundraiser dinner last nite (so 6 of us from work pretty much spent the whole day and nite together except for an hour or so in the afternoon when we were home getting ready for the 50s theme dinner). i was told the meat eater meal was going to be chicken and veg and we never got a confirmation on what the vego meal would be. i assumed the vegan one would just be the veg (and the vegetarians might get some really cheesy dish that was not vegan friendly). me and my vegan co-worker (who is also wheat intolerant) were impressed with what we got. it was a small buffet where we got veggie burger patties, thick cut chips, pasta and salad. i was happy i got to eat well all day.

the night that nemo died

2010-08-06T09:54:00.000+10:00

wombat has finally killed nemo. this was her longest lasting soft toy (most of them get beheaded and de-stuffed within minutes). she's had it 1 3/4 years! there's some pictures of her on her first day with nemo here. she finally found nemo's weak spot the other nite (his belly) and managed to tear him open and de-stuff him all over the lounge room. i love she doesn't eat any of his insides (or any pieces of toys she destroys). she's very good about tearing bits out and piling them next to her (or in this case, tearing them out and spreading them all over). i guess i'll be trying to find a new soft toy for her today (i would try to resew nemo but i don't think my mini sewing machine or my hand stitching would survive long). i guess i can take nemo's insides to work for the kids to make soft toys with--we've got a donated sewing machine now and the kids are encouraged to make things they'd like us (or a parent volunteer) to sew.

puppies and noise

2010-08-01T15:48:00.003+10:00

we went to barwon heads last weekend for a day with family (they all spent the weekend down there, we just spent the day with them on saturday: 11 adults including us, 7 dogs and 3 children). unfortunately i must have deleted most of my photos from my camera before i put them on the computer (that's what happens when i'm in a hurry and don't double check that the photos have actually copied). now i've got just a few dog pictures from the day including this one of cute little dozer chewing on her bone:

the next day we went to a backyard gig at our friends place. it was an all afternoon noise gig with several bands (including 2 that zac's in). noise music isn't really my thing but it was really good.
our friend edryan's solo project "jezzat":

zac's solo project "ze wiseenheimer":

impulse/kontrol:

maggie and townsville

2010-07-16T17:18:00.004+10:00

i'm finally getting around to posting about our queensland trip (feels like it was ages ago we got back but i guess it's only been 6 days). our flights up were ok. we had a 3 hr layover in the gold coast which we spent just hanging around the small airport. when we took off on our next flight we realized a nice beach was just across the freeway from the airport. we could have gone to the beach!

this was the view from our balcony at the hostel we stayed at on magnetic island:

we stayed at magnums at alma bay. there was some confusion when we arrived and the hostel had been overbooked. they put us in a room that cost $10/nite more than what we reserved but it didn't really matter. we had the best room at the place (the one the manager stays in when he/she is there). it was the only one with fly screens on the bathroom and entry way windows and i think the only one with a (small) full sized fridge and some plates/bowls. the only annoying thing about the hostel was the hiring of pots, pans and cutlery for use in the shared kitchen (if i had brought my camping cutlery set i'd looked at when i was packing we would have been better off). basically to hire a pot set and 2 sets of cutlery (which had bowls/plate included that we didn't need cuz our room had some) it was a $70 deposit every time (and they didn't have enough to go around so it's best to return them when finished).
we did a lot of hiking during our stay. i worked it out one nite and figured we did around 10km each day the first 3 days of hiking/walking trips (and that doesn't count the bits we walked around town). we did see some amazing views though:

the forts walk:

nelly bay:

the reason we didn't end up snorkeling:

we had even borrowed snorkeling gear from friends in melbourne that we hauled up for the trip but we found out about the croc with a google search the day after we arrived. that sign was the only sign we saw on the trip (and i think we found that on our 4th day). we saw this sign after we had walked about a km along the waters edge of the beach this sign is posted on.

wild rock wallaby:

rock wallaby and joey:

the rock wallaby's lived at the edge of the bay across the road from our hostel. at dusk they come out and people feed them.
horseshoe bay (one of the furthest beaches from the crocodile siting, the only one we saw a lot of people swimming in. we went swimming briefly twice here):

a kite (i can't remember what kind):

it was sitting in a tree and i took a couple photos. just as i was adjusting my position he took off and i just managed to catch this shot as he flew over me.

picnic bay:

on our last nite we went for dinner at a restaurant that had mexican food (as well as an international menu). all the write ups i saw about the place talked about the wildlife around while you dine. i was assuming they meant curlews and other birds. there were possums as well:

the staff encourage them to hang out by feeding them tortilla chips. probably not the best thing for them. you'd think they could get some proper possum meal (or even veggies) for them but it was kind of cool to see that they were keeping the wildlife around the restaurant instead of trying to get rid of them (and the animals didn't bother anyone).

our last 2 days we spent in townsville. unfortunately we found out as we were trying to book accommodation that the v8 races were happening while we were there. it made townsville a not very fun place--especially since a huge number of out of town bogans seemed to be staying at our hostel and just hung out drinking and squawking all day and night. i had wanted to book nice accommodation in townville but everything was either booked up or had tripled their prices for the weekend. this place sounded nice and had kept their prices normal. i'm sure is normally a nice hostel when it's filled with international backpackers but it was a horrible place with the number of aussie bogans.
boats on ross creek:

the strand at dusk (i didn't have a tripod with me but this shot isn't too shaky):

the view from our hostel pool in townsville:

our flight home ended up taking a couple hours longer than it should have. we had an hour layover in syney but either because melbourne was having bad weather or there was a fault with the original plane that was coming from melbourne to sydney for our flight (we had 2 different stories for repeated delays) our flight kept getting pushed back and we ended up leaving sydney about the time we would have arrived at our house if the flight had gone on time. virgin was nice enough to give us all free in flight tv service (normally $4.90) so at least that was a little compensation for the delay. we ended up getting home just before 9pm (instead of just after 6pm) and having to cook a late dinner (we didn't know how long our flight was gonna be delayed so we didn't eat in sydney and just snacked on muesli bars and rice crackers and nuts all afternoon). it was really nice just to get away for a week to somewhere with warm weather. another month or so of winter here and we should start getting some warmer days (maybe a possible "t-shirt weather" day or 2)

Slow news day

2010-07-08T17:08:00.001+10:00

This was the headline poster for one of townsville's newspapers today. I think they must have been desperate to get inxs in the headline but they couldn't ignore the airport drug bust.

winsor

2010-07-02T21:54:00.002+10:00

we decided to surprise zac's mum, nanna and aunt by coming to afternoon tea at the winsor hotel with them today (it was an extension of nanna's 90th birthday which was in april). me, zac and lea all had the day off work so lea called and added 3 more people to their booking (and she made sure they would provide vegan food for me and zac). we showed up 10 minutes before they opened the doors just as denise, glenda and nanna were walking out of the cricketer's bar towards the room where afternoon tea would take place. they were very surprised. the surprise was made even bigger when nanna's brother showed up just after we sat down (which explained why when lea changed the booking they said the original booking was for 4 not 3). i was impressed with the vegan option. there was an initial mix up where they brought out a vegetarian platter for us (filled with egg sandwiches and very not-vegan looking desserts) but they fixed it fairly quickly (when the server had sat us down she had asked who the 2 vegans were so they did know we were vegan). zac and i each got a vegan 3 tier tray with 2 scones on top, 5 sandwiches on the bottom (2 cucumber ones and 3 really nice eggplant and chutney ones) and some really nice sweets, fruit and jam in the middle (the dessert that is hidden in the photo was the best-- a sadwhich made with 3 small waffers with 2 filling layers in the middle of blueberries and a creamy chocolate sauce).

they even brought out a special dessert platter afterwards for nanna:

the 3 of them were all staying at the winsor tonite in 2 really nice ajoining rooms looking out to parliament house:

freezing

2010-06-29T16:29:00.002+10:00

the temperature doesn't look too bad on that graph but that's cuz that graph doesn't show the freezing cold wind chill. for some reason the melbourne radar doesn't show the wind chill anymore but both the essondon and tullamarine airports show the wind chill being between 0-1.5 C so it is actually freezing outside (and has been for 2 days now). i rode home from work at 1pm and my ears were frozen in the 5 minute ride (i didn't think i'd need my headband over my ears in the middle of the day). i tried to take the dog for a quick walk, didn't wear gloves and my hands were frozen. me and the dog are spending the rest of the day cuddled in the lounge room with the heater on. can't wait to get up to queensland in a few days!

sport

2010-06-27T22:16:00.006+10:00

this weekend was a weekend of sports. saturday nite we went to see the melbourne ice play at the new "icehouse" arena in docklands. much nicer than where they used to play in south oakleigh (? i think that's where it was). we were really surprised at the crowd they pulled. it's a 1000 seat venue and we had to stand along with probably 50-100 other people! unfortunately it was melbourne's first loss at their new home rink but it was good to watch some hockey. hopefully we'll make it back again this season (it had been more than 4 years since the last time we saw them play. this rink is a lot more convenient to get to though-- we just need arrive more than 10 minutes before the game starts if we want seats though).

the age even had an article about ice hockey in the sports section today.
after the game we walked down the road to where the canada club was celebrating canada day (a few days early since thursday won't be a public holiday here). we missed most of the celebrations cuz the event had been going on all day (we just hadn't made it down before the hockey game) but still fun to see everyone in red and white and have a beer.
today we went to the community cup for the first time. i think we'll have to make a point of going again. it was an entertaining game of footy between the espy rock dogs and the RRR/PBS megahertz (who won by 1 point on the final buzzer). although as the commentator said "i think football was the real loser today, maybe ice hockey was the winner"-- a lot of muddy sliding around the oval, missing the ball, passing to the wrong team.... but all very entertaining and for a good cause. we didn't make it early enough to see any of the bands before the game and we had to leave right after the game but we did see the living end at half time (although we were paying more attention to all the cute dogs running around the oval than the music)

poor whales

2010-06-25T11:44:00.000+10:00

the other afternoon one of the children started talking to my co-worker about whales. he was saying something about his dad being naughty when he fishes because he might catch a whale (he's not usually very clear when telling us things so we're not exactly sure what he was saying cuz his dad isn't a commercial fisherman or anything). my co-worker asked him if he knew there were some people meeting to talk about fishing whales (he didn't) and then she asked if he wanted to write a letter to them to let them know that fishing whales is bad. he thought that was a great idea. i think he got a bit confused though cuz he kind of addressed the letter to whales and then added in "to the meeting boys" at the end. the letter is a bit hard to read in the photo but it says:

Dear Whales and the meeting boys,
I think you are sad because you are getting fished. And the whale from Little Mermaid. She tried to save the whale.
No whales have to get fished. Because they will die.
My sign (on my picture) says NO.
I'm thinking with my picutre and pencil does that.
From, ------

i didn't get a photo of his picture but it was a great drawing of a whale. after he finished his picture and dictating the letter he went around the room trying to get other children to sign the letter or make a picutre. by the end of the day we had about 10 pictures of whales to go with the letter so my co-worker made it into a display in the hall. she was a little worried about getting all political with the children but it was all the children's ideas.

4 seasons

2010-06-17T12:44:00.002+10:00

the overnite low was 13C. the low for today was 8C (just before 11am). it's now 12.6C (at 12:45pm). the rain and wind that came with that temperature drop was amazing. we didn't go outside with the children this morning cuz of that. now it's blue sky and sunny. why can't melbourne weather make up it's mind?

liquid chocolate

2010-06-13T17:10:00.004+10:00

we wandered up to high st. today (we haven't done that in a long time) and ended up at cocoloco. my kleopatra's brew was the perfect drink for a cold, grey day: dark chocolate with orange flavours and kashew milk. zac got a coco lust (i think)- white chocolate and kashew milk (and possibly some other flavouring?). we may have to make more trips there this winter (we used to go there quite regularly). so good and rich and chocolate-y. perfect on a winter day.
high street is great for wandering- lots of bookshops, cafes and pubs to spend the afternoon in. apparently a new vegan cafe is opening soon near the wesley anne. zac was at a gig at a sock shop (? that was zac's description of what the shop was) last nite and apparently they're closing down and it will become a vegan cafe. we'll have to keep watching for that.

Dog at work

2010-06-13T10:58:00.009+10:00

I'm not even sure if she knows what she's doing up there. She jumped up there herself after "talking" to me for 10 min from the floor.

Here is a video of her "talking" shortly before she jumped up on my lap- it's fairly dark but you can hear her talk.

those growls are some of the most intimidating growls she does. often her growls are even more whiney, like she's trying to talk .

The view

2010-06-13T10:58:00.007+10:00

This is the view from the back door. We found a couple marrow bones in the park 2day. She's a very happy dog and has taken them 2 her house 2 chomp on.

(this post was from a few weeks ago-- i was trying to publish it from blogger on my mobile. it didn't work but i guess it was stored somewhere in the phone and published today when i published the post above)

chocolate and lettuce

2010-06-05T10:40:00.000+10:00

i forgot how much i loved timtam slams in the morning. i haven't had a timtam since i went fully vegan over a year ago. i don't even think i've had any of the vegan versions of them since i went vegan (before i went vegan zac would bring them home but usually he just used the "too good for share" line and made me get me own non-vegan timtams). zac brought home a packet of Choculence cookies the other day. best vegan "timtam" ever! the past 3 days i've had a much needed chocolate cookie with my coffee in the morning. soooo good.
that chocolate helped me thru the conference i was at all day yesterday. i had to fight the special dietary requirements "soup nazi" lady all day for my food (it was the same woman last year and she is pretty much the soup nazi of special dietary requirement meals-- like anyone who could eat the other food would choose the big salad or gluten free cookies). for some reason, the catering people decided vegans didn't need a special morning tea even though the pastries on the table were definitely not vegan. only gluten free people had special cookies labeled with their names. i managed to get the last spare plate of gluten free cookies after i got the soup nazi to go back and confirm that they were also egg and dairy free (she kept trying to hand them to me saying "gluten free, gluten free" even though i'm on her list as "vegan"). i kept repeating i can eat gluten. i can't have egg and dairy. eventually, she went in the back with the plate and came back a minute later saying "no egg or dairy" (so hopefully she was telling the truth and not just trying to make me go away). for lunch we had a large bowl of salad and that was it. no protein, no carbs just lettuce, tomato, onion, artichoke and beetroot. it tasted ok but if i hadn't had my bag of nuts and dried fruit i would have been very hungry. Why do catering companies think all that vegans eat is salad (and there were at least 5 or 6 names on the list that had vegan next to them)???? my coworker who is vegan and gluten intolerant was smart and brought her own sandwich to go with her large salad. i do put on the conference evaluation form every time this happens that the food was poor and vegans need food other than salad but i'm sure that info rarely gets passed on to caterers. i think it was more disappointing at the last conference which was a sustainability conference that was completely catered with vegetarian food but still, all the vegans got for lunch was salad while everyone else had wraps that were vegan other than the cheese. could they not have made some cheese-free wraps for the vegans??? at least then we would have had some carbs to help fill us up. maybe i just need to get more organized and just pack my own meals and snacks when i go to these things.

eggplant bhurta and cravings

2010-05-30T17:11:00.000+10:00

we had 1 small eggplant that was starting to go past it's prime sitting in the fridge and needed to be used for dinner last nite. it wasn't big enough to make eggplant parma with so i flipped through some cookbooks for ideas and decided on eggplant bharta from la dolce vegan. it was quick, easy and was really tasty. i love all the spices in this indian dish. next time i might try it with quinoa instead of brown rice, just to add more protein.
i also made chocolate pudding for dessert. i hadn't made chocolate pudding in ages and ever since a co-worker was talking about it last week i've been craving it. now that craving is satisfied but i have a new one (and no i'm not pregnant)-- i want to try a grilled 'cheese' and asparagus sandwich. i ran into a co-worker yesterday on sydney rd. just as she was heading to radical grocery for the first time (she's vegan and wheat intolerant and i've been telling her to check out radical grocery for ages and she finally made it there yesterday). she sent me a text today saying how excited she was to have grilled 'cheese' and asparagus sandwiches for the first time in 10 years now that she has cheezely. i've never had asparagus on my grilled cheese. it sounds like it would be really good though. i have cheezely but no bread or asparagus and i'm to lazy to do anything about that this afternoon.

please sign

2010-05-28T18:00:00.007+10:00

below is a link to sign a petition. this petition is to get the government to fund the one effective treatment available for the life-threatening disease PNH. it is a rare but life threatening disease that basically causes red blood cells to be destroyed. this causes major health issues that can lead to death (35% of PNH patients die within 5 years of diagnosis if they don't receive effective treatment). zac's cousin's wife was diagnosed with PNH in january (2 months before her and her husband were married). she has had to undergo several blood transfusions since diagnosis and was depending on the one drug treatment that is known to effectively manage PNH to be funded by the government in this year's budget. the government did not provide that funding for the 70 australians who have been diagnosed with this disease. the PNH support group is petitioning parliament to pass legislation to give PNH suffers access to life-saving treatment. the age (as well as other newspapers and online news sources) printed an article on this issue.

click HERE to sign the petition. (the petition is only for Australian citizens)

cold

2010-05-19T07:08:00.003+10:00

it's 6C out right now. it's supposed to get to 20C today. i'll believe it when it happens. for some reason the weather people keep putting the day's high about 2 degrees above what it actually gets to. they've been doing it for the last couple weeks. why do they get my hopes up? why don't they just put the high at 2C lower and then we'll all be surprised when it gets warmer than predicted. at least even if it gets to 18C today, that's reasonably warm if i stay in the sun.

velo

2010-05-18T18:31:00.004+10:00

velo cycles came to my rescue again today. this morning i realized part way to work i had a flat tire again (this is the second one in 2 weeks plus a third time where i pulled the valve off the tube while pulling off my bike pump-- i'd only had 1 other flat on this bike before this month). i decided just to lock it up and walk the rest of the way. i picked it up on the walk home for lunch and after eating i decided to try to fix it (i still had 15 minutes before i would have to start walking back if i didn't finish fixing it). the hole was really easy to find so i patched it, checked for sharp pieces in the tire and quickly re-assembled it. i was only gonna be a couple minutes late getting back from lunch but as i was riding in my bike was bumping up and down. i had a quick look but couldn't figure out what i'd done wrong so i called work and said i was gonna be a bit late cuz i was going to go a block out of my way and take my bike to velo. i went in and the guy noticed right away i hadn't put the tire on the rim right. he deflated the tube, fixed it and re-inflated it on the spot (and added a bit of air to the front tire as well) . velo is really good like that (i've seen other people walk in with quick issues they've fixed right there and they've replaced a snapped gear cable for me on my way in to work). so glad our closest bike shop is a really good one (they also sell microcosm bike related t-shirts, patches and stickers which is really cool and they used to have pamphlets about with reasons to go vegetarian on the counter)

nachos 'n' cheesecake

2010-05-16T10:01:00.002+10:00

i couldn't be bothered cooking last nite so we decided to stop by the east brunswick club for dinner on our way home from our afternoon wandering sydney rd. i convinced zac that he would be full if we split the nachos and then got dessert (we've never had dessert there because every time we go, we're too full from dinner and don't hang around long enough afterwards to be hungry enough for dessert). i was impressed with the nachos but i didn't get any photos cuz the room was extremely dark (and i realized we were sitting in the darkest corner of the dark room). i can't even say exactly what was on them, cuz it was so dark: beans, jalapenos, salsa, corn, guacamole, vegan cheese and sour cream.... they were good-- and loaded with toppings. for dessert i went with the berry "cheese"cake and zac went with the chocolate coconut "cheese"cake. it was one of the best vegan cheesecakes i've had. it even had a cream cheese aftertaste to it. sooooooo good i really didn't want to finish my beer afterwards and wash away the cheesecake taste (i did though). we'll just have to go back again so i can get more cheesecake. fortunately we have some omni friends who have been saying they want to go back to the east with us and it didn't work out this weekend so maybe next weekend will have to go back with them.

smoked tofu

2010-05-10T20:12:00.002+10:00

i was inspired by this post and decided to make smoky vegan lasange tonite (no photos cuz i didn't take any before i cut it up and i can't cut and serve things like lasange without slopping them everywhere--there are good photos on both links though). i've had smoked tofu at CERES and forgot that i really liked it. i've never actually cooked with it though. when i was reading through the recipe the woman stated that her husband commented that it tasted a bit like smoked salmon (and it sounded like he is an omnivore t00). i loved smoked salmon and i thought how can tofu taste smoked salmon-y? i tasted a bit as i was crumbling it--- wow, it is like smoked salmon!! i think i've found a new favourite food. the flavour worked great in the lasange.

case moth

2010-05-10T19:38:00.000+10:00

this case moth lives at work:

one of the children found it one afternoon last week. the 2 afternoon staff didn't know what it was but one of the other children told them it was a case moth. the teacher (very gently) squeezed the case a bit and decided it was empty so they brought it inside. the next day i noticed it sitting on the edge of the counter. i asked one of the staff about it and asked her if that was where they put it when they brought it in (it wasn't-- the larva inside had moved the case along). i took it outside and just placed it in a large planter box of lavender. a couple days later we noticed it attached to lavender near where i'd placed it. today it was hanging from the outside of the planter box on the opposite end (about 2m or more from where it was last week)-- that's where i took the photo above.
a bit later, i was standing near it with some children and it popped its head out! i've never actually seen the larvae before, just their amazing cases.
it carefully unattached it's case from the wall so it could move. unfortunately a gust of wind came past and knocked it to the ground. that scared it and it went in its case. we moved it back into the box so it could come out and move when it felt safe.

what is it?

2010-05-10T19:27:00.001+10:00

does anyone know what this is? we (everyone at work and zac) all wanna say witchety grub but we don't think i actually is that. a child we had at work last year knew what they were called. we have a lot of them living in the soil under the tan bark at work (and this one was in the soil in our digging patch).