Puppy vs cat - the epic battle

Thinking of nothing. Trying to think of nothing. Thinking of everything.
- The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

I know you've all been hanging out to meet the new member of our flat (well, you probably haven't but I'm going to tell you anyway!!). So blogworld meet Keisha...


She's an 8 week old German Shepherd and the cutest thing ever but I swear that since Saturday she's already grown a whole lot! Scary stuff...

Sprocky the cat looks on. He's not too impressed with the whole situation but coping with the new arrival so much better than we ever anticipated (he's quite a wild, aggressive cat and we were afraid he'd take off).


Anyway, let's have some food...

After a long night out (normally I'm a nana even in the weekend but clearly I was due for a night as a rebel!) and then dragging myself out for a run round the park I was completely starving (and exhausted...more from the lack of sleep than the run though). It was lunch time by the time I'd showered and got my head screwed on so quick but serious refueling was needed.


Carrot and capsicum sticks with hummus, avocado, falafel and toast with almond and peanut butters. This rescued me and kept me going until dinner time (although I did fall asleep on the concrete outside while on guard duty - keeping the cat and the puppy from attacking each other). Sometimes simple is really delicious (actually, I seem to say that a lot at the moment so it must be more than sometimes!).

My darling cousin D and I are addicted to the claypot at one of the foodcourts in town so every couple of weeks we have to meet up for dinner to get our fix!


My usual...the tofu and vegetable claypot. It is so good that I cannot even begin to describe the cravings it inspires just thinking about it! So far I'm on medium heat but I'm trying to build up my tolerance to order a hot next time!

And just because she's so gorgeous, here's Keisha one more time...I never believed in love at first sight until now!

Bullet-proof food and toasted memories

"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.

"So it is."

"And freezing."

"Is it?"

"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately."
- The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne

Hmmm...looks like it's been a little while since I've updated! As usual it's been a bit chaotic around here and as of tomorrow we may have another member to add to our flat! SO excited!!! But you'll just have to wait to find out about that! At the moment we are bullet-proofing the flat in preparation!

Anyway, I've been trying to wade through all the photos of food I've eaten and find something worth blogging about!

Hmmm...how about Peanut Butter waffles from Vegan Brunch?


These totally rock! I think mine were slightly adapted to use a half and half of white and wholemeal flour which seemed to work just fine. They were SO filling though.

What about this huge sandwich?


Leftover tempeh bacon (again from Vegan Brunch), various salady type things, almond butter and marmite on homemade country-grain bread. This was one epic sandwich!

After running round and up over One Tree Hill in the drizzling rain, playing squash then spending nearly 4 hours at the climbing wall and not getting home until 9pm one would be pretty hungry (and exhausted but I figured that kinda went without saying). Serious, but quick, refuelling is required.


Our awesome convection oven cooks everything really quickly so kumara chips are done in, like, 20 minutes! Yay! Along with baked tempeh, salad and broccoli you have a feast and I could go to bed with an extremely full but extremely happy tummy!!

Ooo, how about vegan marshmallows?!


Developed by Angel Food all you have to do is follow the directions on the packet (lots of sugar, lots of water and LOTS of beating) and voilà! We rolled ours in coconut and even spent one night roasting some on the fire...reminded me of childhood camping holidays...

Despite it still being winter, I've developed a small obsession with salads.


A clean-out of any kind of salady item in my fridge (baby spinach, capsicum, tomato, carrot, avocado, dates, seeds mix) topped with a Bean Supreme tofu sausage (their awesome sundried tomato and kalamata olive ones) and hummus. I can't believe something so simple and quick is so seriously delicious.

But I can't leave you with something that healthy to linger on so what about...


...vegan chocolate cake from The Blue Bird?! No words to describe how good it was ☺

Roller-skating revels

The listener laughed until tears came into his eyes, and sometimes tears came into his eyes when he was not laughing.
- The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

So another birthday has come and gone (does anyone else feel like this year is moving at an incredible speed? It'll be Christmas before I know it!) so therefore good food had to be consumed. My friend E and I were off to see Starlight Express at the Vector Arena in the afternoon but first we needed some serious refueling (well, I did anyway having just come from yoga). So lunch it was...at Revel, my new favourite cafe. Normally I get the beans on toast but this time I thought I'd have a change and went for the Vegan Reveller instead.


This was seriously good (although I've yet to have something bad from them yet!!). The sundried tomato pesto was especially good. I polished off my whole plate in no time (must have been starving!).

No birthday is complete without cake but Revel didn't have any vegan cake so I settled on a cupcake instead (I'm more of a cake person myself...don't know why).


Coffee and walnut...seriously delicious!

Starlight Express was awesome but then E and I both love musicals, especially ones you can sing along to and are as cheesy and elaborate as this was!

The evening was spent blobbed out in front of the TV watching DVDs with another friend which was just perfect because relaxing is something that I don't do enough of. I don't have a picture of dinner but it was delicious...and I didn't have to do the cooking (or cleaning up either)!! Awesome!

Waking up and eating

"Now," the man in black said, laughing. "Oh, now. We make great magic together, you and I. You kill me no more than you kill yourself."
- The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King

The fuse for the oven is blown so we've been without cooking abilities for the last 2 nights...still waiting on the electrician to come since it's one of those really old fuses that make no sense. Other than that though the new flat is great.


That's a terrible photo of our backyard from my bedroom. One lemon tree with more lemons on it than tree, 2 very sour orange trees and a grapefruit tree...awesome! Also a bonus is that the sun is out this morning. I'm solar powered so I feel more alive on sunny days.

I often have breakfast at work during the week since I've come straight from training so I need a variety of quick, easy, filling and delicious meal options that don't require much effort at the time and I can preferably eat at my desk. I love the taste spelt flour gives to baking and I am in love with the spelt flour muffins they make at Kokako so naturally I had to make the Blueberry Ginger Spelt Muffins from Vegan Brunch (I bought a copy via The Book Depository...free shipping and much cheaper prices than books here anyway? How is that possible?).


I only had mixed berries so I used those and I've never seen vanilla soy yogurt in my life. It's hard enough finding plain soy yogurt anyway so I used a berry-flavoured one which seemed somewhat fitting! Also, I made mine texas sized...perfect for breakfast with a piece of fruit. They were SO good.

Another recipe I tried from Vegan Brunch was Chocolate Beer Waffles. I had my friend C over one day and his main hobby seems to be drinking (okay, not really but he does like beer...a lot) so, well, beer and chocolate seemed the perfect mix for a lazy brunch.


My mixture came out pretty runny but I thought I'd give it a shot cooking it anyway...nope definitely too runny. Once I added a little more flour though they were perfect...kind of like a chocolate beer brownie waffle! More of a dessert than a brunch but hey, everyone deserves to treat themselves sometimes.

Since we seem to be on the topic of breakfast/brunch, I've also been having the odd green smoothie...


...very tasty but definitely not good on my stomach before going for a run! Better to save it for afterwards...

Digging up family memories

He smiled at me like a dark prophet telling some simple truth which I had always known but never before heard in words
- The Favoured Child by Philippa Gregory

There was a time when us kids would avoid going to our parents house and having to be around family but lately we've been regularly coming together (well, not my eldest brother and his wife in America but that goes without saying...they do tend to call on the nights we're all together though) for dinner. Mum secretly loves the opportunity to cook up a storm especially 'cause she can make dessert!


Stir fried veges with crispy tofu...super quick, super healthy and super delicious!


Pear crumble with homemade custard and chocolate lite licks ice cream.

Sometimes it's my job to come round and cook dinner for everyone! I made one of my quick and easy favourites, nachos.


This batch was not nearly as spicy as I'd normally make them as my parents aren't good with hot food but it was still delicious.

One of our family favourites is vegetarian shepherds pie adapted from one of the Meals Without Meat books by Alison and Simon Holst.


Served with some stir-fried veges and it's the perfect warming winter meal.

One of the best parts of dinner at the parents is that Mum often will make us dessert! This is an old favourite of hers, apple butterscotch pudding.


Apparently Mum used to make us this when we were little kids...my brother fondly remembers it but my memory is clearly a little lacking. It's SO delicious though that the four of us polished off the whole pudding in one sitting! Definitely a keeper (now to see if I can prize the recipe off Mum!).

Welcome to the kitchen

Wall Street and the City of London had plenty of money to fund new ideas, but only if they were easily understandable ideas, ones that merely modified what could already be done.
- Electric Universe by David Bodanis

I finally got around to cooking properly on Tuesday night but I was still feeling fairly drained so it was a pretty simple meal - a good old tofu stir-fry using a block of pre-marinated tofu.


It made enough for 3 serves so I had leftovers to look forward to for lunches for the next couple of days. Always good!

The following night my friends S and E took me out to Sunflower Cafe, an asian vegetarian restaurant in town with a variety of mock meats. I'd never been to a restaurant serving mock meats before so I had to order one of the fried chicken stir fries just for the hell of it. Turns out it was very delicious!


Can't remember everything else we ordered but it was all really delicious and filling. I even managed to score leftovers of the chicken dish to take home (more leftovers...yay!).


Afterwards we went back to S's place where we devoured vegan chocolate cherry cupcakes that S had made and chocolate-dipped orange peel alongside copious amounts of tea and gossip. I haven't had such a good night in a long time (or felt quite that overly-full)!

I also met my Mum in town during the week and took her out to lunch at Revive as a very belated Mother's Day present (she's been overseas...that's my excuse!). I ordered the hotpot of the day which was Dahl Aloo with potatoes and brown rice and the German style slaw on the side.


I love all the colours in the slaw...it's like eating a rainbow straight off your plate! And just because everyone deserves a treat now and then, we had bliss balls to finish...perfect :)


I wanted to post some photos of the house and garden here but it's been raining non stop which made my race yesterday a mudbath! Looks like more rain is forecast for the up coming week too...fun times!

Here we go again...

In the aftermath of your visit, I am moving slowly, as if I'm swimming underwater. I had hoped to see you because I am selfish, but now I wish you hadn't come...I am no longer a source of protection for you, but a source of pain.

- Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult

It was Dad's birthday last weekend so that called for a little celebration. And what do all celebrations need to have? Good food!

For dinner I made a vegetable and lentil lasagna with whatever I could find in the kitchen. I haven't made (or eaten) lasagna since I last was living at home and this made me wonder why since it was so simple and quick...plus it freezes really well for leftovers.


Instead of cake I opted for one of my favourite recipes, Celine's Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie. I couldn't find the recipe on her website any more but luckily I had a copy stowed away. This time though, I made Chocolate Almond Butter Pie with a chocolate crust.


So delicious! We all went back for seconds even though we knew we were well and truly full. It's so rich I don't know how we even managed it but life is too short to waste good pie!


On another note, I moved into my new flat on Friday so you can expect to see some decent food coming out of my kitchen shortly!