A Vegan Christmas: Part Three

Well, the dinner was a success. If you count success to be that they were already full before the main course after eating my nibblies and soup. The Sweet Potato Flan wasn't exactly great tasting and both Geoff's brothers seem to dislike lentils and chickpeas a lot but everyone found something they liked. Apparently Geoff's mum said she didn't miss meat at all. Then she added that Geoff's older brother might not have shared the same sentiment.

The Sienna Cake was beautiful, the gingerbread cookies turned out great, the chocolate dipped fruit was a winner (especially the white chocolate! Thank you Sweet William) and then everyone exchanged gifts and it was really nice.

So now we are off to Yamba tomorrow after I give my final MATH2000 tutorial for the year. I love my MATH2000 class. They are so sweet.

I'm definitely taking the gingerbread recipe, the rum ball recipe (although using less rum this time!) and the Sienna Cake recipe. The lentil bobotie was quite nice but I think a little too lentily for my family. But my brother loves the kofta balls at the Hare Krishna stand and I found a recipe in Cooking with Kurma for them although it was made with cheese. The Hare Krishna ones are vegan so I'm sure I can find a recipe somewhere.

I'm sure once we get there Mum will put me in charge of food so I will keep my anxious readers updated with what I'm going to cook.

Recipes to come.

A Vegan Christmas: Part Two

I've been making rum balls (the recipe has way too much rum) and gingerbread dough while waiting for Geoff to get home. He's seeing Avatar. It looks pretty lame but the fact that it goes for 161 mins makes me hate it. We get it, James Cameron, you can make long movies. Well done. Pat on the back. Can I have my boyfriend back now so I can go to bed?

I have decided on the Sunday meal for Geoff's family. I don't like it when people complain they never feel full after eating vegetarian/vegan meals so I have a meal and a half to combat that.

Elise's Dinner for 6
A Vegan Christmas for Geoff's family

Nibblies:
seasonally spiced nuts
carrot, celery and crackers with beetroot and olive dip

Starter:
spicy Moroccan chickpea and lentil soup

Main:
sweet potato flan
lentil bobotie
with
potato salad
roast vegies
Chang's Fried Noodle salad

Dessert:
sienna cake
chocolate dipped fruit
gingerbread cookies
rumballs

If they think I'm just a cuckoo lunatic extremist hippy after dinner they'll at least think I'm a cuckoo lunatic extremist hippy who can cook.

A Vegan Christmas: Part One

Geoff is spending Christmas with us this year so we've invited his family over to my house for dinner this Sunday. Of course, the meal is going to have to be vegan since it is my house and I'm cooking. Except there are a few catches that Geoff informed me of after he invited them:

1. they like meat,
2. they like milk and eggs,
3. they don't like anything out of the ordinary (so anything but meat and 3 veg),
4. they don't like mushrooms,
5. they don't drink alcohol.

What the hell am I going to cook?!?!?!

Bare Naked Beauty

This is a great Australian website that sells natural and organic beauty brands. And there are vegan products galore! Check it out.

Bare Naked Beauty

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EcoFashion Magazine

Peppermint Mag

Excellent magazine surprisingly based in Brisbane. Check it out and support them.

They have great vegan recipes in the magazine!

Koko Specialty Cakes and Desserts

If you've ever been to the West End markets of a Saturday or had a delicious dessert at The Forest then you will already know how delicious and well-presented the cakes from Koko are. They are vegan and gluten-free and made in Brisbane!

Watch this (but not while you are eating)

I got to the end of Paul McCartney's introduction and had to turn it off because I felt physically ill.

This is a short film presented by Alec Baldwin. Apparently. I didn't get that far into it.

meat.org

Viva La Vegan

I ate at The Forest the other night and picked up a business card for this website.

There are lots of recipes although some of them look a little out there.

Cheat's (Maree's) Paella

I've mentioned paella before only I don't really like my recipe. It's messy and tricky and involves a ridiculous amount of ingredients. And I was almost turned off paella for good until I went to my darling friend's house for one of my traditional Monday nights with Maree.

I remember when I walked in the door and saw her pouring about a litre of red wine into the pan and smelling the herbs and thinking she'd had a little brain collapse and was cooking mince for her vegan pal. But I think even if her brain collapsed she'd still look after (ie feed) everyone around her.

This is the recipe. She calls it Cheat's Paella. I call it Maree's Paella.

Cheat's (Maree's) Paella

Medium grain rice
Moroccan seasoning
Paprika
Cayenne pepper
Fresh chopped chilli
Garlic
Salt
Pepper
Diced onion
Diced carrot
Diced sweet potato
Diced capsicum
Lots, lots, lots of red wine
Vegetable stock
Black olives
Thyme
Parsley
Plain soy yoghurt

Basically the idea is to fry off your onion with your spices until nice and fragrant in a large fry pan. Then, add a little more olive oil and the rice and ensure the rice is well coated, until the rice goes translucent. Add your vegetables and fresh chopped herbs to this mix with a little red wine to get the spices off the bottom of the fry pan.
Then add enough red wine and vegie stock to cover the mix. Put the lid on. Keep adding red wine / vegie stock until the rice and vegetables are cooked through – make sure you don’t drink all the wine while you are waiting for this to happen.

Serve in the fry pan with chopped black olives and soy yoghurt.

She also hosted a lovely Christmas party on the weekend and made these really tasty nuts. I'll track down the recipe to share with you guys.

In other news Geoff has gone to Newcastle for a Combinatorics (no, I didn't make it up, it's a type of maths) conference so I'm home alone. Geoff normally walks the dog since I'm still recovering from the broken ankle. However, today I got a little tipsy drinking some Pinot Grigio (Brown Brothers. Vegan. I checked here. Handy website.) and decided I'd play with the dog. Only she likes to make me chase her and the backyard is full of holes (thanks to the dog) and I didn't want to trip and fall down one so I took her for a walk instead. Except, in my drunken stupor, I thought running around the oval would be a good idea. Yeah. It wasn't. My foot hurts. My ankle seems fine it's just my foot. So I have the brace back on. Stupid, stupid Not-So-Skinny-Vegan.

I also overspent at Dogstar last week so am putting 1/8th of my wardrobe up on eBay. Maybe 1/10th. I pulled out about 70 items and it barely made a dint in my wardrobe. I own a lot of clothes.

And, I hope you all noticed, I now have a whole 7 subscribed readers. 7! I'm famous!