I am vegan, hear me roar

Friends in the right places

2009-08-21T04:27:00.000-07:00

So the detox is over and I have to say I can highly recommend it! By day 5 I was feeling energetic and light and just a little bit full of myself for being so healthy and righteous :)

Two days after the detox ended I had the delicious pleasure of attending a vegetarian Thai cooking demonstration hosted by Vegetarian Tasmania. It featured two ladies (Jittah and YaYa) from my absolute favourite lunch venue, Shu Yuan Vegetarian Cafe who were kind enough to teach us all two Thai recipes, one of which I have already tried to recreate at home (it's never quite the same though!)
I have to admit I never usually go to things like that but 1. I love the ladies and the food from Shu Yuan and 2. My best friend LC. was kind enough to go along with me. I was so glad I went though!! What a diverse and interesting bunch of people vegetarians and vegans are. The crowd ranged from the Hemp clothing wearing, dreadlocked stereotype through to corporate executive types and everything in between (like me, I like to think!) I was so pleasantly surprised that I have already booked in for the next event!
The other magical gem I took away from the demonstration was some invaluable advice on where to source a huge variety of vegan food items. I am not lucky enough to live in an area with masses of vegetarian/vegan choice so when Jittah and YaYa told me about a little Asian grocery store near to my work I had to plan a visit.
So during my lunch break today, I hopped in my car and began my adventure. For the record, the store is called Wing & Co in the small suburb of Sandy Bay in Southern Tasmania (for all my local friends) As I started to look around I saw the standard Asian fare you may find in your local supermarket. Noodles, dried mushrooms, canned Asian vegetables but in amongst all of these familiar items were the things I had only heard about on the blogs of those vegans lucky enough to live in vegan friendly areas. I could tell you all of the amazing (well, amazing to me) items I saw but a shorter list would be to tell you what I managed to limit myself to.
The first things I had to have was vegetarian chicken nuggets. I try to avoid processed foods as much as possible and stick to whole foods but these little beauties looked so much like the real thing, I had to have them if only to show my husband DV. Next up, vegetarian BBQ pork. My absolute favourite lunch item at Shu Yuan is a dish called 'vege BBQ' which has vegetarian bbq pork in it. I had to have this little treat so that I can try to recreate the recipe. Then I found Inari pouches and even though they were $14.95 I put them in my basket because I eat so much Inari, I am sure I will end up saving money!! I also found vegan mock jerky which I had only dreamed of finding and considered ordering from America. I ended up pretty disappointed with this one but each new purchase is an adventure. I rounded out my shopping trip with fried tofu puffs, rice noodles and vegetarian oyster sauce.
I know my excitement at these findings may seem a bit of an overreaction to some but it is more the fact that going to the cooking demonstration, which is something completely out of my element, has lead to so many benefits. So tonight's moral is - "Live life to its fullest because most of the time, you will be pleasantly surprised! And make sure you drag a friend along :)"

Be Compassionate, Be Proud and Speak Your Truth

Food Inspiration

2009-08-12T02:54:00.000-07:00

So, when my internet goes down and I am stopped from stalking vegan food blogs, I have to go somewhere for some food inspiration. So I 'kick it old school' and break out the cook books. As a vegan I have become SO frustrated by the huge variety of vegetarian cookbooks, heavily laden with cheese and other dairy and the desperate lack of vegan cookbooks. This is teamed with the fact that I live in a relatively small city so when I finally see a vegan cookbook I get extremely excited. Through much will power and self control I allow myself to calmly peruse the pages to ensure it suits mine and my hubby's taste. So I have a nifty collection of said cookbooks... OK, I have four, not quite a collection but as they mean so much to me I thought I would share my appreciation of the authors, recipes and compassion they represent by sharing them here!

My most recent purchase was Now Vegan! by Lynda Stoner. The book is so new in fact, I haven't even had a chance to make any of the recipes but I have study it in depth. My favourite thing about this book is the fact that it's Australian so there is no measurement conversion or trying to find out what Arugula is. The thing that struck me most was the fact that many of the recipes used faux meat and other processed items. When I was a beginner vegan, this would have been perfect for me as I practically lived on veggie sausages, TVP and very bad attempts at Seitan but I have found as time goes by my tastes have drifted towards more wholefoods... vegetables, grains and beans. The bit of the book that really sucked me in is the desserts and bakings section. When this detox is finally over I am going to be all over the Chocolate Mousse recipe!! As an interesting side note, the author Lynda was in such famous Aussie TV shows as The Young Doctors, Cop Shop and Prisoner.

My next book is Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson. This is an awesome book that is broken up well into different sections, and has excellent information on vegan basics, health, setting up a vegan kitchen and ideas for dinner party menus. The book focuses on wowing people with how good vegan food can be, not trying to replace meat with faux meat all the time. My favourite aspect of the book? The little introductions to each recipe and the little 'stories' that break up the recipes, making it as much a book on being vegan not just cooking vegan.

Number three is Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Isa's personality truly shines through in this book which I think is the real draw card of this book. She seems sassy, witty and smart. The recipes are just as lovely and the book is so well laid out with sections covering everything from brunch, the main act and Cookies and Bars (my personal favourite) Isa's fauxstess cup cakes, although time consuming, are well worth the hero worship you get when presenting them to adoring crowds.

AND I have left my absolute favourite until last.

The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. This book has such a wonderful mix of recipes adapted from old omni favourites through to things that are true vegan only gems. Beautiful pictures, lots of handy 'Did you know?' facts, plenty of ideas for substitutions in recipes... This book is the BOMB. And the best, best, best thing by far??? I have cooked so many recipes from this book and I am yet to come across a stinker among them! I can't wait to find Colleen's first book 'The Joy of Vegan Baking' and I am eagerly awaiting the release of her next 'Colour me vegan'. If you see this one snaffle it up before someone else does!!

So that's my vegan cook book collection of which I would be lost without... Does anyone else out there have any tried and true treasures that they recommend??

Be Compassionate, Be Proud and Speak Your Truth

Saving Grace Potato and Guac

2009-08-10T01:07:00.000-07:00

I am starting this blog in the middle of a detox which may prove to be a bad idea but here we go regardless.

Some may be wondering "Why would a vegan need to detox, they already don't eat so many things?" Truth be told, it is very easy to live a 'naughty' vegan lifestyle, especially with so many convinience foods avaliable. My personal favourites? Here's the top 5 of my worst culprits-

5th - Veggie Korma, creamy, spicy goodness with a side of white rice of course!

4th - Salt and Vinegar potato chips, I LOVE love love salt and potato... Put them together *drool*

3rd - Coke Zero, I try to avoid faux sugar as much as possible but Coke zero is a much loved throw back to my omni past

2nd - Hot chips, like I said, I LOVE potato and this would have to be my favourite way because it's quick and so delicious. Mmmmm Grease...

1st - Red, red wine, drinking is a huge part of the culture in Australia and red wine is my weapon of choice.

It probably wasn't very productive to do that list at the particular moment in time but let's face it... As soon as you take something away that thing then becomes all you can think about. These 5 things have been whizzing around my head for 3 days now.

Turns out these tasty treats have been wreaking havoc on my body because the withdrawal symptoms I have been experiencing have been tough. Saturday brought with it a lovely headache and the need for an afternoon nanna nap. Sunday just got worse, same headache ten times worse, dizziness and nausea (no need for concern, I was told this may happen). Thankfully today I have had only a dull pain in my head and a very noisy yearning to plow my face into a big bag of hot chips.

This brings me to the main reason for todays post (no, I didn't just want to complain)

My lovely detox recipe book has provided me with a recipe that might just make the rest of my week bearable. So easy, healthy and delicious! Not quite as quick as I often demand but given the other detox options I am calling this

'Saving Grace Potato and Guac'

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cooking Time 1 hour

Serves 1

1 medium potato

1 small avocado

1/2 small red onion, chopped finely

1 small tomato, seeded, chopped finely

1 tbs finely chopped fresh coriander

1 tbs fresh lime juice

Preheat oven to 190C
Pierce well washed potato skin a few times with a fork and wrap in foil. Place on oven tray and bake for 1 hour (until tender)
Mash avocado coarsely and then stir in onion, tomato, coriander and juice.
Cut a deep cross in the baked potato and serve topped with the guac.

Hope you get as much guilt-free enjoyment out of this as I do!

Be Compassionate, Be Proud and Speak Your Truth