Here's to a very exciting decade ahead

"Come, come," said Venables. "I really can't go along with this modern playing down of th evil as something that doesn't really exist. There is evil. And evil is powerful. Sometimes more powerful than good. It's there. It has to be recognised - and fought. Otherwise..." he spread out his hands. "We go down to darkness."
- The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

About a month ago someone (oooo, that was me, pick me!) had a very important birthday (well, all birthdays are important, but some are more important and exciting than others). And what do birthdays always call for (well, in my world anyway)?

Why yes, that is a dirty concrete floor. Thank you for noticing.

CAKE! The chocolate cake from Bhakti Cookti Bookti in fact. It was so ridiculously rich and chocolatey that we had to eat it with ice cream lite licks hokey pokey is the BEST!). Not exactly surprising considering it basically has an entire large block of chocolate in the icing!

After the usual wintery Wednesday Night run (basically a group of us meet up on a Wednesday night to go running in the Port Hills together) M and I tempted everyone back to where we were staying to help devour the cake. Cake is pretty much the perfect post-run food right?

The cake is filled with delicious jam as well as copious amounts of chocolate icing. Yum!

In case anyone was concerned (although I can't see why) M and I did actually eat some real dinner which even included vegetables!

Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie and Olympic rowing. Perfect!

The ancient history decorated in tinsel

It was all about health, of course. It was a conspiracy. Why did they never find a vegetable that was bad for you, hey? And what was so wrong with onion gravy anyway? It had onions in it, didn't it? They made you fart, didn't they? That was good for you, wasn't it? He was sure he had read that somewhere.
- Snuff by Terry Pratchett

Oh man, it’s been a LONG time. So long that I can’t even remember everything that’s happened! I was trying to go through all my photos and it all got a bit much! I can’t believe it’s already two thirds of the way through February. Where is the year going?

I know it was months ago but the easiest place to start seems to be Christmasy stuff. Christmas time basically involves lots more cooking, baking, eating, socialising and all that kind of stuff.

The weekend before Christmas M and I travelled up to Auckland for the annual family get together. To start with we proceeded to eat our way around some of my favourite places in Auckland (as well as catching up with some of our favourite people) including lunching at Cosset...


No, I didn't eat ALL of that! But what I did eat was delicious!

We then had to devour lots of food at the family Christmas party that evening. I'd made my tofukey which always goes down well. It's nights like this that make me miss being back up in Auckland with my family. My aunts and uncles are like second parents and my cousins have become brothers and sisters.


Pancakes for brunch at Revel were the perfect way to recover from the food coma of the night before (okay, that's not strictly true but it seemed like an awesome idea at the time). They were buckwheat pancakes served with rhubarb...delicious.

Christmas eve was all about singing carols in the park whilst trying to keep the candle from blowing out (which we failed at miserably!).


Christmas itself was spent at M’s family’s house where we got to eat potatoes that were dug from the garden right before our very eyes and I ate peas straight from the pod (11 peas in one pod - apparently that's good luck).


I made tofukey and Christmas pudding (which was served with soy cream and fresh berries) for everyone. I love Christmas food. Christmas cake was also made...I think I might need to make another one now so we can enjoy it at all times of the year.


All in all I think it was quite possibly the best Christmas I've ever had. Yay!

Join me next time when I dive back down into the deep archives of time since my last post and find some other exciting things to tell you about! I promise it won't be far away.

Exciting!!!

You’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!
- Oh, the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss

So, I did say there was some big stuff happening and today is the big day! Today I will be on a plane moving to Christchurch. Depending on who you talk this is either exciting, crazy (often rephrased in a more positive light as brave) or scary. Or a combination. I think it's exciting although I have been through the whole range of emotions in the last few weeks (especially in the last few days). Despite the earthquake and everything sometimes you've just got to dive into life no matter what.


Anyway, because I am the most useless blogger ever I have no photos of my awesome leaving meals but I will tell you about them anyway! First up was a lovely evening hanging out with my cousins and watching a bit of the royal wedding. We ordered rather excessive amounts of pizza from Hell and my aunty made a delicious crumble. Yay!

There was also my last day of work where my boss took me out for lunch at Landreth & Co on Ponsonby Road. The lady at the counter was super helpful at working out what they could make for me and I ended up with a huge bowl of pasta with bountiful amounts of tomato, spinach and basil. It was so good. We also got through two bowls of fries. Is that bad to admit? It was 3pm by the time we had lunch though...!!

But the most exciting and awesome meal was my farewell dinner at the flat! My flatmates are so awesome and put together the coolest dinner ever. Basically it was make your own rice paper rolls but the spread of things we could put in them was incredible. So many different veggies and fruit as well as rice noodles, tofu and sauces. I ate so many it was a bit ridiculous. Then for dessert I made the Mocha Melt Cake (but gluten-free for the lovely H) from Have Your Cake and Eat It Too (in the rice cooker!!!) which I served with banana ice cream (frozen bananas, a bit of soy milk and vanilla essence all blended up together...SO good). I am really going to miss all these guys. Best flat and flatmates in the entire world. Ever. Seriously.

And then (because I can't stay away) I ended up back at my flat for my final night in Auckland because, well, I really didn't want to say goodbye! They cooked up this awesome Indian curry along with a beautiful dahl soup which I will have to attempt to recreate at some point. It was perfect. And then I rushed out before any of us could start crying!! From one home to another...

So the next post will be from my new home!! How cool is that?!

Cake or death

Even in the world of today we can see how mighty powers can come apart at the seams when confronted with simple demands for peace, love, food for the poor, and amnesty for the enemies of the state.
- Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder

I know, I know. Blah blah blah...

Anyway, before I race off to bed (before racing off before dawn tomorrow for the national orienteering champs in Hawkes Bay...scary!!) I thought I'd just quickly tell you something. Kris's new vegan cake book is out and it's called have your cake and vegan too. It arrived in the mail at my parents the other day which was super exciting!! I was a tester for it so I can tell you that it is awesome. Actually, her cake recipes are pretty much the only ones I ever use.

I whipped up one I hadn't tried for my cousin's birthday last weekend, Bubbie's Chubby Tuxedo Cake. It seemed fitting after how much she adored last year's cake (the oreos got her very excited).


As usual for Kris's recipes it was simple, reliable and worked out perfectly (well, it took a bit longer to cook in our ancient oven and my baking always seems to turn out a bit more moist...not that anyone would complain about that).


It went down a treat and my flatmates gave the leftovers I brought home 5 stars (5 michelin stars actually!). Awesome :)

Anyway, I promise to post more once life settles down and I also promise to post about my exciting (terrifying) news soon!! Oh, and if you were wondering about the title watch this.

Getting high on tea

The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling

So, last weekend (just to clarify, not the one that's just been but the one before that!) I decided to treat Mum to a special afternoon tea at the Heritage Hotel...any excuse to try their vegan high tea!! It was a pretty miserable day which meant our plans for a walk were dashed so we took the bus into town early and spent way too much money on shopping...although Mother and daughter shopping these days is more to the likes of Macpac (I know some of the ladies on the homepage - just a little shout out to the Macpac Girls On Top!!) and Bivouac!

Anyway, after all that shopping it was time for food especially since I hadn't eaten lunch (I had a late breakfast in preparation!). I had called ahead so when we arrived it only took them a few minutes before we had this placed in front of us...


First up you've got to have sandwiches.


We've got wholemeal sandwichs with avocado, hummus and cucumber and white bread sandwiches with tomato, basil and vegan cashew cheese

Next up, we all need some sweet treats in our life.


We've got brownie bites, fruit tartlets, vanilla macaroons and chocolate dipper apricots.

But for the main event, and probably the thing I was most looking forward to, scones.


Cranberry, orange and ginger scones to be more precise, served with strawberry jam and soy cream!

Oh, and there was tea...because what is High Tea without, well, tea?!! It came in a teapot. No photos. Use your imagination.


Basically I think the photos pretty much speak for themselves. Mum loved it and I thought it was totally awesome although I did leave on a bit of a sugar high. My favourite was definitely the scones with cream and jam. Definitely a combination worth repeating. And it has inspired me to go out and buy some more soy cream and do "stuff" with it...what kind of stuff I don't know yet but I'm sure I'll come up with something!

Life is surreal

His eyes were filling with some great emotion, as a pitcher fills with water when it is dipped in a spring.
- The Waste Lands by Stephen King

Things have been busy and now things are just plain overwhelming and scary. It all seems so surreal. Everyone I know in Christchurch is okay but that doesn't really make it that much better. I can't help worrying about M and all my friends. I just want them here and safe. Makes being at work seem completely irrelevant.

But you've got to try and keep your spirits up so here is the cake I made for a combined birthday party we had in Christchurch a few weeks ago for M and our friends.


This is before the cake made it to the party hence the awesome kitchen bench background
We ran around outside doing a crazy orienteering course, we ate lots of delicious food and even more delicious cake and we danced to awesome 80s music until I was too tired to stand up any more. Beautiful memories.

The dreaded tofudabeast

Deep groans and creaks shivered her bones, as though some vast ship a thousand times bigger than any human vessel was sailing past their window, mere inches away but invisible behind the thick, cold mist.
- Shadowrise by Tad Williams

Yes I know, it's not Christmas any more. It's not even 2010 any more! But anyway, I thought I would share my tofukey recipe that I subjected everyone to at our family Christmas party.

I remember reading about tofukeys and finding the whole idea hilerious so a few years ago I thought I'd look up a recipe and see if I could create my own one for our family Christmas party. It ended up going down really well and tasting delicious so I made it again the following year. Last year I made something else but this year it was back and better than ever.

Below is the recipe for the tofu part. For the stuffing I used the Seasonal Stuffing with Nuts recipe from The Vegan Table. I halved the recipe and still ended up with way too much but that's okay 'cause you just end up with delicious leftovers! I did add a little more liquid than the original recipe though so that it held together better...but feel free to use your own stuffing. The recipe sounds complicated but actually wasn't nearly as hard as I expected.


Tofukey
Tofukey
350g firm tofu, drained
1 1/2 Tbsp cornflour
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tsp powdered vegetable stock powder
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/4 cup roasted, unsalted peanuts
1/4 cup roasted, unsalted cashews
1/4 cup chopped, fresh herbs (sage, thyme, parsley, marjoram)
freshly ground pepper

Stuffing
Your choice...I used the Seasonal Stuffing with Nuts from The Vegan Table

Marinade
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp tahini
2 Tbsp orange juice
1 teaspoon French mustard

Tofukey
In a food processor, puree all ingredients. Place in a bowl in the fridge while preparing the stuffing.

Stuffing
Once you've made the stuffing you may need to add more liquid so that you can roll or press it into a log about 20cm long. I tend to wrap mine in baking paper and squeeze it to make it stay together!!

Marinade
Whisk all the ingredients together. Set aside.

Assembly and Cooking
Preheat the oven to 175°C.

On the kitchen bench lay down 2 pieces of baking paper. On top of the baking paper spread the tofu mixture in a thin rectangle about 24cm long and wide enough to wrap around the stuffing log. Place the stuffing log on the centre of this. Carefully lift the edges of one end of the paper, lifting the tofu up and over the stuffing. Gently pull the paper away from the tofu and lay flat again leaving the tofu around the stuffing. Repeat with the other side. The tofu mixture should meet at the top and wrap all the way around the stuffing. Gently press the edges of the tofu mixture together and smooth over. Press the tofu over the ends of the stuffing log and smooth this over also.

Brush the entire top of the roast with about half of the marinade (keep the other half for basting later).

Wrap up the roast with the baking paper and then wrap in a couple of layers of foil. Gently place in a baking tray and bake for about 45-60 minutes. Remove from the oven, allow to cool, and then refrigerate until about 1 hour before serving.

About an hour before serving, gently unwrap the roasts. Brush with more marinade (make sure there is still some reserved after this) and re-wrap. Place in the oven and bake for about 20-30 minutes at 175°C

Remove foil and baking paper. Brush with the remaining marinade and place back into the oven for around 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Slice and serve with cashew or tahini gravy.

Minty Christmas!

The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.
- Neuromancer by William Gibson


The dessert place at our Christmas lunch...
I have a thing for peppermint chocolate so it wasn't surprising that I fell instantly in love with Revel's mint slice. So what better way to spend Christmas Eve than trying to concoct my own version!!


Mint Slice

Base
125g margarine, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup cocoa
1 cup coconut thread

Mint Filling
3 Tbsp margarine, room temperature
3 cups icing sugar, sifted
1/4-1/2 tsp peppermint essence
1-2 Tbsp milk (oat, soy, rice etc)

Chocolate topping
250g (1 block) Whittaker's Ghana Peppermint Chocolate (or any block of chocolate really but I only had this one on hand...)
1 Tbsp margarine

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 20 x 20cm square baking tin with baking paper.

Base
Cream together the margarine and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in the rest of the ingredients until just combined and then press into the prepared baking tin. Bake for about 15-20 minutes. Let cool.

Mint Filling
Beat the margarine until light and fluffy and then slowly add the icing sugar whilst beating. Add the peppermint essence and milk until you reach your desired consistency. Spread the filling over the top of the cooled base.

Melt the chocolate and the margarine together and then spread gently over the mint filling. Chill until firm enough to cut into slices (about 20 pieces...).

Eat.

How to stay alive

Time, unfortunately, though it makes animals and vegetables bloom and fade with amazing punctuality, has no such simple effect upon the mind of man. The mind of man, moreover, works with equal strangeness upon the body of time. An hour, once it lodges in the queer element of the human spirit, may be stretched to fifty or a hundred times its clock length; on the other hand, an hour may be accurately represented on the timepiece of the mind by one second.
- Orlando by Virginia Woolf

It was D's birthday recently and birthdays are important and need to be celebrated. Don't think about it as getting older (we're only as old as we feel anyway). Think about it as celebrating another year of being alive. Being alive is really quite underrated and trust me, it is definitely something worth celebrating.

We were going to have a little party a couple of days later but on the actual day I took her out for dinner at Revive. No one should spend their birthday alone.


This is their hotpot of the day, the Tangy Tandoori Chickpeas which was served on brown rice and I chose the Juicy Bangkok Slaw for my salad. I love their slaws and this was a pretty good hotpot. I was starving so it really hit the spot.

Then a couple of days later we had a little party at D's parents. Aunty L loves creating platters...


The dip was a spicy red bean dip from one of Alison and Simon Holst's Meals Without Meat books. I could have probably eaten the entire contents (this may have partly been because I was really rather hungry by then). I restrained myself but it was very good.

Everyone else was eating my Aunty's seafood chowder but she had whipped me up some kind of veggie and lentil casserole and it was pretty good. I ate it with more corn chips and the remaining veggies from the platter.


And then we had cake...which is really the main event when it comes to birthday food. I seem to have found my place within our family as the birthday cake maker. I'm not complaining (for a start, if I make it then I know I can eat it and I like cake so getting to eat it is a real bonus!).


We are quite good at polishing off a cake in our family. Life is far too short for tiny slivers.


I do think this photo might be a tad deceptive. I swear the icing wasn't that thick!

Chips chips chips chips, we like chips

He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold hearted, and rather selfish, is to be ill-disposed.
- Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Sing the title as a round...it's great fun (then try singing happy birthday followed by 'For she's a jolly good fellow' also as a round...that's even more fun although we may have drunk a fair amount of wine by then)!

A little celebration was called for, despite the fact it was a couple of weeks late so my kiwi brother (as opposed to my American brother), my lovely cousin D and I trouped off to my parents place for delicious food and good times.


Dinner was tofu stir-fry and oven chips (kumara chips for me but there were potato chips too). Mum seasoned them with kelp salt which was super delicious, and I convinced her to leave the skins on...I've now made my parents converts. Awesome.


I've been dying to try a raw dessert for ages so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I ended up deciding on The Real Cheezecake from Ani Phyo's book Ani's Raw Food Kitchen. Very costly to make so I'd been saving it for a special occasion but it is super easy.


It was sensational (better than I expected to be honest)...very filling but not too rich and everyone loved it which was cool. I thought they might think it was a little too weird or something but no, it was welcomed into everyone's stomaches with open mouths.


Wine and apple cider...they do say don't mix your drinks and they may be right! Also not so good when you have a race the next day but I couldn't stop laughing most of the night so that can't be a bad thing right?

Oh, and just in case anyone else was interested...Beauty and the Beast in 3D was awesome. I may or may not have needed tissues.

Doing a 180...

Ross was unsure about leaving Joe in Danny's house. He could imagine what she'd do if she arrived home unexpectedly and discovered a stranger ripping out her toilet.
- Knotted by Michelle Holman

...also known as Sunday in Christchurch.

We ate porridge, went orienteering (otherwise known as running round in circles and standing round in the freezing cold afterwards), sat in front of the fire and ate peanut butter sandwiches. Oh, and I got asked to do the World Rogaine Champs. ARGH!!!! Exciting!!!!!! (in case you hadn't worked it out, that was exciting news number 2).

Moving on. In the afternoon B and I popped into his local mall to, well, do mall stuff (well, actually to go to the supermarket but we got distracted). On our way through I saw this...


Personally this could almost be exciting news number 3 but you might laugh at me. Beauty and the Beast is, like, my favourite movie of all time (okay, maybe a close second after The Princess Bride). And now it's in 3D!

Anyway, once I'd calmed down from that excitement, we popped over to visit D at her motel to eat cake...certain celebrations always need cake right?


I like cake (although making them in B's kitchen is not quite so good since it is lacking in some vital equipment so it's lucky I brought my cake pan down with me)!


Then for dinner we went to the Dux de Lux which is a vegetarian and seafood pub (I think they used to be solely vegetarian but they now serve seafood as well). With heaps of the meals you get a salad on the side (which you get to pick). There were 2 vegan options this time so I went with both...a tofu and vege one and a green salad. The tofu salad was divine.


I also really like their (alcoholic) ginger beer. You may have noticed I like ginger and since discovering that alcohol, in moderation, is really not that scary, this is a very nice drink.


We wanted kumara chips but it was not to be (they were sold out) so we settled with buffalo wedges. This plate destroyed us and we left way too many on the plate for my liking but my stomach was just not gonna take any more.


For my main I ordered the corn and vegetable fritters which are served with a beetroot chutney. I had these last time I was here but I didn't feel like the Indian dish and I can get a red tofu curry up in Auckland any day. Plus I like corn fritters. They were better than I remembered too.


So all in all another pretty much perfect day...

It's all very exciting...

But he could not move. He could not make the effort. He lay there with his face turned into the gentle stream of falling water and did not stir again.
- Angel - Seeker by Sharon Shinn

...otherwise known as Saturday in Christchurch.

It started with coffee...or, more specifically, since I've never drunk a cup of coffee in my life, a ginger chai latte with rice milk from The Orange Tree.


I then wanted vegan pancakes and nobody was going to stop me...I doused them in maple syrup and they really didn't last long at all. I love pancakes (oh, and they can make them gluten free too if you so desire)!


I've only just recently started climbing again after various injuries and events got in the way. Unfortunately winter is not really the best time for climbing outside so we just hit up The Roxx. Just so you know, I don't normally climb in socks (or polypro pants for that matter) but my feet were too cold.


There was an emergency peanut butter sandwich consumed partway through (well, not partway through a climb because that might be a little crazy).


Yes, I have chalk all over my hands...they don't normally look that weird.

Climbing makes me hungry so we went exploring for a stop of lunch/afternoon tea. And what did we find?


Yep, it's Eternal Delight - a raw vegan cafe. I didn't even know they existed (well, in New Zealand anyway). It was all terribly exciting but I had to remember we were going out for a fancy dinner so we couldn't eat too much so we decided to split a main and a dessert. B chose the Italian pizza and salad.


Seriously this was amazing. I don't know how they did it but just looking at the photo right now makes me want it again real bad. The salad especially was very impressive (yes, the pizza was great but there was something about that salad...).

As a sweet treat I picked the Superfood Black Forest Cake which uses goji berries instead of cherries. The guy gave us a discount because it had fallen over. He said that normally it stands tall and proud. Again it was pretty awesome. We decided we'd have to come back here for their Friday night fine dining next time I'm down.


And then we raced home to check trademe (like eBay I guess but specifically for us here in New Zealand). You see, I had placed an auto bid on a road bike as the auction was going to close while we were out so I had no idea if I'd won or not. But guess what?! I won!!! This is exciting news number 1 (more to follow in the next post). I will probably post photos of it everywhere at some point. It's awesome!

Anyway, moving on! Dinner was a special occasion made even more special because B and I were joined by my beautiful cousin D and her boyfriend. So basically, it was dinner with my bestest friends in the whole world and it really can't get much better than that. We decided to go to The Lotus Heart because it's fancy and they do awesome food.


Fries first...you can't really go wrong with that (plus their homemade tomato sauce is real good...they should bottle and sell it 'cause I'd definitely buy it). B ordered tea and I had to take a photo...I want this tea set.


D and I went with their homemade ginger beer...you also can't go wrong with that. I order it every single time.


For our mains B and I decided to order a couple of different things and share (D and her boyfriend did the same). We got the vegan pizza which had their special cashew vegan aioli on it...I have to try this 'cause it tasted super cheesy (well, at least my memory of cheesy).


We also ordered the curry of the day. Somehow I have managed to delete the photo I took of this...oops! Anyway, I can't remember now what it was but it was tasty which is really all that counts. I think the waiter was quite impressed that we polished off all this food with such ease (and then casually asked for the dessert menu too).

Dessert...raw pumpkin pie with raw ice cream. Oh my god! This was really REALLY good. So good that I was very surprised. It was also a ridiculously large portion and I couldn't even finish it which is quite a rare thing for me. I had to take the leftovers home (there was no way I was letting it go to waste!).


And to finish off an awesome night? We went to live comedy...a perfect night (especially because B and I tried to book too late so they'd sold out but somehow 2 people cancelled right before the show was about to start so we got their tickets).