Vegan Christmas Dinner

Last night we went to our first Vegan Christmas Dinner held by my good friends A & C in Frankston. I met a few other wonderful people there, who all had brought a vegan dish to share. One lovely couple are omnis, but absolutely love vegan/vegetarian food. Great food, amazing company!

I took the dishes I said I was going to - sushi, broccoli quiche, crunchy sesame slaw, apple tart with walnut crust and cashew creme. All of my food was well received, and thankfully too, as I had spent a few hours in the kitchen preparing it!

It was all scrumptious, but I so have to say there was a LOT of salad! (To my new wonderful friends - please don't be offended. I just feel there is more to vegan food than salads.)

I had some great conversations about all sorts of topics. I even found some people who LOVE board games as much as I do!!! Now I am looking forward to the move to Hastings, for the chance to have board game nights! The game lovers all live in the SE suburbs.

During my cooking session yesterday I had time to make an awesome smoothie. I had some avocados left that desperately needed to be eaten (or into the bin they would have had to go!). I made Indonesian Avocado Smoothie from, do I need to say it, 1000 Vegan Recipes.

All I can say to this is WOW. Wow, wow, wow!!! I substituted the recommended coffee with cacao powder (because I HATE coffee) and it made a fantabulous, chocolately thickshake better than any thickshake I have ever tasted! Email me if you want the recipe! It was that good!

Do you remember the picture of my little vege garden that I had started? Well look at it now:

Look at all that greenery! One of the bok choy's turned to seed straight away (anyone know why? I'm new to this). There is zucchini, lettuce, leek, silverbeet and carrots. We've even been eating some of it! So rewarding! It reminds me of my grandparents in NZ. My grandad grew broccoli as big as your head. Maybe he is my spirit guide, and that's why my veges have grown so well. I hope so, it's a nice thought isn't it?

My plans for today - clean up my messy room! It'll take me all day, too!

Time to get scrubbing,

Tahn

A Glorious Spring Day in Melbourne

So no VeganMoFo tag tonight. We did eat, though nothing blog worthy really.

Again the kiddies and I got out of the house and went down to Coburg Lake. How absolutely glorious was today's weather??!!!

The kids didn't even look at the playground today, instead they spent a good hour-and-a-half playing in the creek, hopping from rock to rock, discovering bugs, and 'accidentally' slipping into the water! Took some photos of the cygnets and goslings. Too cute!

Once home, after a quick feed of crumbled lentil burger and salad sandwich, we hit the back yard. Tweenie mowed most of the lawn before YM and Baby had a small go (it's all right, we have a battery powered lawnmower that rocks! You have to hold the handle down and it cuts out IMMEDIATELY when it is let go, so there is really no chance of the kids getting hurt). A month or so ago we cut back some trees and tidied up the grape vines so we also spent a couple of hours snipping up the twigs before I got out the electric chainsaw and chopped the larger branches up into small pieces so they would fit better into the green waste bin.

We also had to add a tonne of soil to the vege garden Popeye made for me. The soil was delivered a couple of days ago in 25 HEAVY bags and I had to lift them up to about chest height before dumping them into my first vege bed. Unfortunately there was not quite enough soil to reach the top, but that is ok, we planted some seedlings in it anyway. I LOVE the fact that I won't have to bend over to 'play' in my garden!

I smelled like worm wee (I accidentally spilt some on myself!) and even got a little sunburnt! By the end of the arvo I was completely knackered! Tweenie asked if she could make some brownies and I remembered about the brownie recipe I saw on The Fairest Feed (thank you!) and told her to use that. We didn't have any choc chips but it still tasted good all the same. The other two worked together and made some biscuits. I tried to take a photo of Tweenie taking a bite of the brownie to post but it didn't work out and her piece didn't last before she had gobbled it all up! So no photos of food today.

We are going to go on a picnic tomorrow, taking our bikes along the Merri Creek towards the city and see where we end up. It is supposed to be another fabulous day tomorrow and we want to make the most of it!

Enjoy the sunshine!

Tahn