Today's Tasty Foods

Looking for a tasty dip (not sure what I wanted, but I thought it would jump out at me when I saw it) I stumbled across a raw cheesy dip that sounded ok, but with only 4 ingredients I didn't know how well it would go.

Let me just say this - TRY IT!

WOW. It really does taste like cheese! It tasted FANTASTIC with the broccolini stalks I picked up for cheap yesterday, although the kids loved it with red capsicum sticks, and carrots.

(in case you were wondering and couldn't be bothered clicking on the link to see what the four ingredients were, they are: cashews, nama shoyu, red capsicum and lemon juice)

Tonight, I had left over salad for dinner (actually, the curried carrot salad that I love) so the kids and I made Cauliflower Yellow Capsicum soup. 

The  kids loved it. Again, having not tasted it, you'll just have to take their word for it!

Once again, photos are so crap, apologies! I am really, really, really lazy and usually grab the closest thing to me to capture the food before it (the food) gets munched!

Tahn

Uncheese fun and a Pot Luck Picnic

Yesterday I mentioned that I had made some cheeze from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook that I borrowed from my friends A & C.

I made two different lots, a colby uncheese and a mozzarella type uncheese (laziness prevents me from telling you the exact name of the recipe - I'm in bed and I'm not moving, not even for you!).

We have only tried the colby, we had it on grilled toasties for breakfast. It looked like this when I took it out of its container this morning:

And then like this after a stint under the grill:

I smooshed one to see if the different texture mattered. Turns out it didn't! To me, anyway! Baby preferred it smooshed, but she wasn't keen on the plain tomato sauce without cheeze. The kids wanted tomato sauce under their cheeze, Popeye had his plain, and I had good old vegemite.

It was really good! Then we had a slice or two in our sndwiches for lunch today. Mmmmm. Popeye said it tasted like American Cheese, but since I have never tasted American Cheese before I'll take his word for it! I really liked it. The cheeze lasts 5-7 days in the fridge and is really easy to make. I'm thinking that I will make it on a Sunday night so we can have it during the week for lunches. The cook book gives many variations of this cheeze to try, so we are going to try them all and see which we like best.

The mozz is for pizza, which I am planning to have tomorrow night. So I'll tell you about it then.

I attended a really fun potluck at the park tonight. There was so much yummy food! And really great company! I didn't take any photos, except of my own before I left. I took:

Roasted Capsicum Wraps (which went a bit softer than I expected, but in a yummy way) from The Vegan Table

A Fruit Platter

Chocolate Banana Bread (which also has walnuts in it and it rocks) from 1000 Vegan Recipes

I'll link to the other great blogs when the photos go up (and I'm getting tired and even more lazy).

Thanks for the invite guys, we had a great night (the kids didn't even want to leave!!).

Tahn

A taste of the RAW life

I have posted once before about my cool vege spiral machiney thing that I purchased at the World Vegan Day. Only that time when I made awesome vegetable curls, I forgot to take a photo of them. Here it is in action:

YM holding up a zucchini curl, while eating the left over 'core'.

Tweenie showing how long they can get.

The kids search through their food to try and find the longest curl!

This is our dinner (of raw zucchini, carrot and beetroot) before we added the sauce.

The sauce was a capsicum creamy sauce and it was delicious.

I got the recipe from www.raw-pleasure.com.au. I signed up for their newsletter and I got a link to a free e-book that was about 100 pages long and FULL of delicious looking raw foods. Well worth the 2 seconds it took to sign up! I will definitely be trying other recipes from the e-book.

Sweet Pepper Cream Sauce

By Mama Raw of the Raw Pleasure forums

Ingredients: 

2 large red capsicums, seeded & chopped 

1 clove garlic 
2 tablespoon olive oil 

1 tablespoons flax oil 

1⁄2 teaspoon marjoram 

1⁄2 teaspoon sea salt 

1/8 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste 

1 cup cashews 

juice of 1⁄2 a lemon

Method: 

1. Blend the first 7 ingredients to a liquid.

2. Add cashews and juice, then blend until smooth.

Serve at room temperature over spiralised zucchini. This can also be used as a dip or a salad dressing.

I bought myself a new blender on Friday (you may remember that Baby smashed mine to tiny little pieces the other week). I have been without a blender for about 2 weeks and it was killing me! I was missing my daily green smoothies! So I used the already over-extended credit card (it is christmas!) to buy me a new one. I don't know how long this $70 one will last but at 900w, it is much faster than the last blender. It really makes my smoothies smooth (as opposed to little green bits floating around). So I suppose Baby breaking the last one was a blessing in disguise (but I won't tell her that! - She is NOT allowed to touch this one!!)

I have a busy few days coming up. I've got to make cupcakes tomorrow for YM's birthday on Tuesday. He wants to take oreo cupcakes to school (27 kids, thanks very much!). YM's 9th birthday Tuesday. On Wednesday night I am flying to Sydney to see Popeye (I'm very excited! It's been 3 months!!). He is graduating from his course on Thursday. So on Wednesday I need to make 3 lots of school party foods (of COURSE they are all having end-of-year parties on the same day!). Two kids want Cindy and MIchael's sausage rolls, and one wants cupcakes. I also have chosen to pre-prepare Wednesday and Thursdays dinners for my babysitters (Popeye's sisters have kindly donated their time, so I will repay them by feeding them and making sure they don't have to do much except be there!). I still have a few christmas gifts to get, but especially Popeye's - I'm thinking a home brew kit. Thursday is Popeye's graduation parade (all those HOT navy men in their crisp white ceremonials uniform (especially mine - 3 months is a long time!). Then we are jumping in his car and driving back to Melbourne, while it is the last day of school for the kids. Not to mention a bit of personal grooming - waxing, tanning, toe nail painting (It HAS been three months, did I mention??) and all this adds up to 5 VERY busy days! Phew, I'm exhausted just from typing all that!

Better get some rest,

Tahn

Took a break, now I need to catch up!

Wow, has a week gone past already?? I seriously needed the 'break' after posting for all 31 days of Veganmofo!

But now I am back!

This tummy-rumbling picture is a mixture of a couple of recipes I found. The tofu is sesame seed encrusted and it's resting on a bed of capsicum, broccoli, spinach and tomato. DELISH!

Most of our meals in my week off have been very boring.

My mum arrived from W.A today and we went to the South Melbourne Markets. I found Chia seeds and organic cacao powder. After we got home we walked to Woolies to get a few things. We specifically wanted some ingredients for tabouli and oaty burgers. By the time we got home we were stuffed so I ended up using my new toy from the World Vegan day to make some raw zucchini and carrot curls.

I then probably broke the rules of raw and added some heated pasta sauce over the top. Everyone thought it was delicious and I thought of some other wonderful ingredients I would add next time (including making my own pasta sauce!). It was scoffed down before I could remember to take a photo! I think this was a good introduction to partially raw for all of us. The kids were comparing the lengths of the curls to see who had gotten the most and longest!

After we cleaned up I made the kids a green smoothie. I used green grapes, spinach, flax seed oil, cacao powder, banana, chia seeds and ice.

The result was happy kids!

Stay tuned for the tabouli and oaty burgers. Tweenie gets her braces off tomorrow and is very excited. I wonder if I will feel like cooking...not if it is as hot as it was today!

Tahn

Zucchini is coming out of my ears!

On Saturday we got to the Markets VERY late so we didn't have much choice left. It was 15 minutes before closing and the stallholders were getting rid of the last bits of fruit and veges. I managed to pick up a dozen zucchinis for $1! So I have been trying to find yummy things to do with them before my pets (the worms) get to eat them.

So I found this recipe for Vegetarian Chilli on the Supercook website (there is a bit of a theme going on here with the Supercook website this week!). I know most of you will have your own chilli recipe you use, but I haven't got 'one' yet and found this one to be SCRUMPTIOUS! Every single one of my babies LOVED  it. I used up 2 of the zucchinis in this recipe, changed the 2T of cumin seeds to 2t (still could taste it but not overpowering - too much spice makes for whingey kids!). I'd also add MORE sweet corn as I am such a fan of this vegetable (that's because I am such a sweet tooth!). I didn't have an extra can of whole tomatoes so I left it out, but next time I would try it with 2 cans of chopped or some fresh chopped tomatoes. Other than that, I think this recipe is a keeper for us. Maybe it will be my 'signature' chilli! ha

Oh, and I had a TINY bit of left over rice from last night that I added right at the end.

I went to the 'Nong today to help my BIL with his website. I tried to find the new Vegesafe cafe for lunch (was suppose to be on Foster St), but could not find it ANYWHERE! Very disappointed as I was hoping to see what they had, give it a go and review it. If it is there it is hiding and not very noticeable - if a vegan looking for it can't find it, how are the general public going to go! Shame, really, was looking forward to it.

On the way out my sister and I stopped at Savers. Wow, that is a big store! Very neat, orderly and set out. Lots of kids clothes too, so I promised that I would take the kids there one day (they'll love it!). All we pulled up in a parking spot and were putting some coins into the meter, an average looking, nicely dressed bloke came up to us and said that he had just had his wallet stolen and really wanted to buy a jacket in the Salvos (that store was right where we parked) for $5 and could he swap some cigarettes for $5. My sister said she had no money but I knew I had a $5 note and although I am on government benefits (dole bludger!) I reached into my bag and handed him some money. He looked at me, took the cash, started to walk off, then turned and said thanks. Then he started to walk in the OPPOSITE direction of the Salvo store! Rude. Anyway, we went into the Savers store and after 10 minutes in there the same dude walked up to us and was about to give us the same line again but you could see in his face he recognised that we had already been suckered into  handing over money and he promptly turned and got the hell out of there. You, know, it really annoyed the crap out of me because 1. I have NO money (I haven't been paid for the teaching work yet) and 2. It makes me think twice about helping out these people who REALLY need help. I bet he makes more in a day than I get from the government with 3 kids in a week! So wrong and again, I feel embarrassed that I got suckered in again!

Slime ball.

Tahn