New foods, homeschool fun and a birthday

Wow, have I been busy of late! New recipes have been tried, not photos have not been gotten. I'll be honest and call it as it is - laziness! Here's a meal we had just the other night that I did take out 5 minutes to click away before stuffing it lovingly into my gob!

Country Fried Tofu with Golden Gravy (1000 Vegan Recipes, P. 285) with Szechuan String Beans (Vegan Planet, P. 196) and of course, sweet, sweet corn!

Well, officially we started home schooling one week ago. We are having so much fun. One topic, which began with a reading book called 'Granny Grasshead' ended up with us making our own grassheads. We had a ball making these on the back lawn with a heap of supplies. A few weeks later here is what they look like:

Tweenie's grasshead

YM's grasshead

Baby's grasshead

And, yep, even I made one! The best thing about homeschooling is learning shoulder-to-shoulder with my kids!

Recently it was Baby's 8th birthday and she wanted a chocolate cake. 'No problems,' I said as I picked up my favourite go-to book '1000 Vegan Recipes' by Robin Robertson and I came across the perfect cake for her.

This is the most delicious 'Vegan Chocolate Mousse Cake' (P. 445). It has three different sections - the cake, the mousse in the middle and a chocolate ganache on top. Ch Ch Chocolate overload!

Happy birthday my beautiful baby girl. Why do you have to grow up so fast?

Tahn

Hearty Breakfasts

I recently told you about how we are having a hearty breakfast in the mornings, a good-sized lunch and a small dinner. It seems to be working really well and the kids are loving the lunches that don't involve sandwiches!

Here are some breakfasts we have been enjoying.

This was amazingly delicious! I was inspired by Green and Crunchy's breakfast sundae post and made it for us all. So good! This will definitely be on our regular rotation. Very sweet - just the way I like it!

This were called Johnny Cakes and they come from 1000 Vegan Recipes by Robin Robertson. They were made with polenta and were good! Robin suggests drizzling them with maple syrup, but I had none, so I sprinkled them with coconut sugar.

I like breakfast muffins. These again came from Robin Robertson's creative mind and were Banana and Walnut Breakfast Muffins. I had no walnuts so I used almonds. And I actually forgot to add the sugar into them and they were still good.

This morning I made 2 giant batches of pancakes - one lot of Flaxseed Blueberry and the other was Spiced Banana, both from Robin again but this time from her Vegan Planet book. I didn't take a picture because I was running a bit late as I was heading off to my first day back to work.

Notice a theme here? They are all sweet! We do actually have savoury types of breakfasts, like scrambles, but we much prefer the sweeter side of life.

On another topic, Girl on Raw has a giveaway from Living Raw Magazine Australia. Go check it out if you want to win!

Tahn

Balls, Balls and More Balls

Every since Popeye gave me his food processor I haven't stopped whipping up a batch a balls every couple of days. They usually don't last out more than 2 days around here with all kids on holidays, Popeye home and me - the worst culprit!!

Some I have just thrown all sorts together to make healthy raw balls

Others have been planned a little better

Both of these are from Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson. On the left are Chocolate Macadamia Clusters (p. 512) and on the right are Date and Cashew Nut Truffles (p. 513). Both are good, but my favourite is the orange looking ones on the right - they are rolled in ground cashews. Yum, yum, yum!

These delicious balls are Apricot-Walnut Balls from 1000 Vegan Recipes (p. 444) also by Robin Robertson.
There have been countless other 'freehand' balls that didn't quite make it to be photographed.

And now for something different:

Our first harvest of plums! Some more are still baking on the tree and should be ready (along with a MOUNTAIN of grapes) when we return from Bali. We are all very excited! (For Bali, and the grapes). We are off to Perth on Tuesday, and leave for Bali early Thursday morning. I've never been to Bali, and it is the first time the kids have been overseas! Exciting times ahead!

Chocolate Pudding Parfaits

I am really loving holidays (ok, so I didn't work too much last year, but technically it is holidays for me. I'll be working my butt off this year hopefully). So much time free allows me to make and bake and I am spending a heap of time in the kitchen.

For my first recipe out of my new book, Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson, I made Chocolate Pudding Parfaits. So rich and so good. A decadent dessert!

Tahn

More Uncheese Fun and NEW COOKBOOKS!

I finally got to taste the Buffalo Mostarella uncheese from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. Popeye's sister H and her partner M joined us for dinner (after a long ride on the 112 - they live in St kilda - it takes close to an hour!).

We had a few drinks (wild turkey and coke - mmm) while we waited for the pizzas to cook. So, guess what? Photos forgotten!! There was left overs this morning, and although it is not the same, I have taken a photo of them.

Shitty photo. So shoot me. Anyway, my pizza is loaded with caramelised onions, sweet potato, roasted capsicum, mushrooms, baby spinach, and Mosterella (others had semi dried tomatoes, but I'm not a fan. Nor am I a fan of hot pineapple, which they also had - so clearly this was NOT my pizza). The Mosteralla was REALLY yummy! The only downfall was that is makes quite a bit, and although all 7 of us had large clumps of it all over our pizzas, there is still a shit load left. Now I'll need to find something else to eat it with (darn).

Yesterday we headed into the city. We stopped at the casino to watch the christmas display (which was really good!) before heading to Borders to return a couple of books that Popeye had given me for christmas. I had casually mentioned to him that the reason I turned vegan was the book Skinny Bitch and that I had lent it to a colleague last year who never returned it (it would have been ok if she had turned vegan and kept it, but alas, no). So he LISTENED (wow) and bought it for me for christmas. Except that he got me Skinny Bitchin', which is like a blank journal with little motivational quotes throughout. I'm not much of a journal writer - I'd get excited for a few days and write lots, then put it down and never pick it up again! He also gave me a tapas cookbook, but after looking through it, I found that there would not be much I would make as a lot of it seemed unadaptable, with meat as a focus. I told him that I didn't think I would ever use it and could we change that too (I only suggested it AFTER he said I could swap whatever I wanted. I am not an ungrateful gift receiver).

So I swapped the books for Skinny Bitch (which is the one Popeye wanted to get me)

and Vegan Planet (because as you know I love her other book!).

I was really after one of Ani Phyo's raw cookbooks (does anyone have it they could lend to me?) but Borders really only had 2 raw cookbooks and they both seemed overpriced and crap. I was well over budget (as VP was $50 at Borders, yet only $36 at Readers Feast) but Popeye loves me and paid the extra anyway. I was struggling to find anything else I wanted at this book store. I've since found (from Miss T's blog) that Dymocks on Collins is THE ONE to go to for vegan cookbooks (like I need more vegan cookbooks). I also like Reader's Feast, but they had no raw cookbooks. I was determined to only buy Ani's cookbook at Reader's Feast if they had it but walked out of there with

and

Naughty, naughty.

I REALLY wanted a raw book because one of my NY resolutions is to include a raw food day into our diets next year (more on that and other NY resolutions later). I'll have to rely on Google for a while, gosh darn it.

When Popeye's sister came over she brought cupcakes. I also forgot to take photos of those but they were delish! H is planning on transitioning to veganism (from vegetarianism) next year and she has a new love for VCTOTW. She brought VCTOTW and The Voluptuous Vegan with her for me to peruse (so much to read/try/eat, so little time!). Popeye bought a copy of 1000 Vegan Recipes for her yesterday also and she was a tad pleased!

So I have 5 new-to-me cookbooks waiting for me to get stuck into. Which one do I start with first?

Tahn