Vegusto No-Moo, Mild-Aromatic Cheese

I discovered this Vegusto No-Moo, Mild-Aromatic Cheese cheese at Taste Organic, Crows Nest and it's really yummy! It is gluten free as well. Vegusto is a Swiss brand of meat and cheese alternatives that are 100% vegan and use no palm oil. This one tastes like cheddar and was so nice on crackers with tomato and on toasted sandwiches.

Mum's Simple Pumpkin Soup

My mother hated cooking. I don't remember her cooking much when I growing up but what I do remember was quick and easy! This soup is so simple and has only a few ingredients. I served it with Tofutti sour cream and garlic bread.

Mum's Simple Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

1 butternut pumpkin
1 can chopped tomatoes (or fresh if you want)
I onion, chopped
water
salt & pepper
Tofutti sour cream (for serving)

Method
Peel or slice of skin of pumpkin. If you get a good sharp peeler it makes this so easy!
Chop pumpkin into small chunks and put in pot with enough water to cover the pumpkin, also add onion.
Boil until pumpkin is soft.

Add tomatoes and season with salt and pepper.
Wait till tomatoes have warmed through.
Mash pumpkin till smooth (I use a potato masher but if you have a bar mix you'll get a much smoother soup).
Serve with vegan sour cream and garlic bread!
EASY!

Loving Earth Chocolate

Loving Earth is an Australian brand of products that are all organic, dairy, gluten and sugar free. I tried the Raw Organic Crunchy Mint Dark Chocolate and at 72% cocoa it was too strong for me but I found the Raw Organic Lucuma & Maca Chocolate with 60% cocoa to be much milder. I've seen them sold at Thomas Dux Grocer and Taste Organic, Crows Nest.

CocoLuscious Ice-Cream

I have discovered a new vegan ice-cream at Taste Organic, Crows Nest. CocoLuscious ice-cream is made in Australia from coconut cream. I do love SoGood's Vanilla ice-cream but you do miss flavours and CocoLuscious has a range of flavours including Chai, Chocolate, Mint, Rasberry, Coffee, Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Cookie Dough, Mexican Chocolate, Mango just to name a few. I picked Mint with Chocolate Chips because that was always my favourite flavour. It was pretty good. The peppermint flavour was subtle because the flavours are create with natural and organic ingredients and the coconut flavour was quite strong but still a lovely ice-cream. It's not the cheapest ice-cream but certainly worth it for a treat!

Lush Aromaco Deodorant

I recently bought the Aromaco deodorant stick from Lush and I have to say I'm pretty impressed so far. You can smell the patchouli a little bit but mainly it's scent free and certainly did keep me fresh smelling all day long (and I walk an hour to work everyday). The other deodorants they have are powders which I don't like but I certainly will be buying this one again!

Mustang Nepalese Restaurant

Mustang Nepalese Restaurant, which I frequent, is amazing. It's very reasonably priced and has a lot of vegetarian options that they can easily make vegan, which most are already. I went there for my brother's birthday and he was very impressed. They use chickpea flour to batter so it's mainly gluten free also - yay!

We had;

Entree

Spinach Chaat  - Crispy baby spinach leaves
Poleko Bhanta - Char-grilled eggplant, stuffed with spicy onions, served with mint sauce.
Aloo Chop - shallow fried golden potato cakes, coated with chickpea flour, served with mint sauce and green salad.

Mains

Daal - Assorted lentils cooked in a slow flame with mild spices, tempered with cumin seed. This dish is perfect with basmati rice.
Mushroom Ra Hariyo Saag - Sautéed mushroom and spinach with delegates Nepali spices.

(the Pumpkin Kwaa - Spiced pumpkin and chana daal cooked with onion and tomatoes & Zeera Aloo - Delicious potatoes tempered with cumin seeds and mustard oil are very good too)

Spinach Chaat, Poleko Bhanta & Aloo Chop

Daal

Mushroom Ra Hariyo Saag

Antica Gelateria‎ Crows Nest, Sydney

I recently discovered Antica Gelateria‎ at 3/29 Holtermann Street Crows Nest, Sydney. Apparently they have some special machine that makes extra churns or something. They had a couple of flavours of sorbet that were dairy and gelatine free and is was SO creamy. It was honestly hard to tell that there was not dairy. YUM!

I had the rasberry & rhubarb...

Vegan Hair Removal Wax

Over the weekend I road tested two vegan waxes I bought. Moom & Parissa, both I bought online, have many different hair removal products for men and women.


Parissa is a professional wax, worked perfectly, especially with shorter hairs on your legs. The strips they have in the packet to use work much better with their wax than the cotton strips I normally use. The only problem I had with Parissa is that it's a professional wax meaning you can't reuse the strips and the wax is a nightmare to get off your skin and your bathroom. You have to use oil to get it off which is messy in itself. The warm wax is completely vegan - their' other products contain beeswax.

Moom was definitely the one I will use again. It is all natural so washes off easily but still works great - similar to Nads which was my product of choice before I went vegan. I like that I can just use my cotton strips and wash the wax out. Much easier to clean the bathroom afterwards as well. This wax works a treat for bikini areas.

Next I am going to brave an attempt at sugaring...

Cinnamon Choc Chip Muffins

This is a slight variation on a recipe from vegan.sheknows.com.

Cinnamon Choc Chip Muffins

Makes 12

Ingredients

3/4 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup GF plain flour

1 Tbls ground cinnamon (halved)

6 Tbls vegan margarine

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup raw sugar

1/4 cup apple sauce

1/4 cup rice milk

1/2 cup vegan cream cheese/sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup besan flour

1/2 cup millet flour

1 cup brown rice flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 300g packet of vegan chocolate, crushed into pieces

Method

Preheat oven to 180C and place muffin liners in tray. (I didn't have a muffin tray - hence square muffins).

In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, and butter. 

Use your fingers to rub ingredients together until it resembles coarse meal. Place bowl in the refrigerator.

In a large bowl, whisk together oil, sugar, applesauce, rice milk, sour cream, and vanilla.

In a medium bowl, stir together besan flour, millet flour, brown rice flour baking powder, baking soda, remaining cinnamon, and salt.

Add flour mixture to the oil mixture and stir until moistened. 

Stir in refrigerated mix.

Stir in chocolate pieces.

Divide batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups. 

Bake for 25 minutes or until muffins are golden and spring back when pressed lightly.

Cool in the muffin pan for 10 minutes then carefully invert and serve warm.

Hot Cocoa

The vegan version of hot chocolate is of course the traditional way! I have substituted sugar for agave syrup.

Hot Cocoa
Serves 2

Ingredients

2 Tbls Cocoa powder
2 Tbls agave syrup (or sugar)
2 cups (250ml) rice milk (or any non-dairy milk)
1/8 cup water
Vegan marshmallows (optional)


Method

In a small saucepan heat water, cocoa powder and agave syrup on a medium-high heat and whisk until melted.
Add milk, whisk through and heat on medium until mixture is hot but not boiling.
Serve with vegan marshmallows!

Using homemade marshmallows...

For a Xmas variation, a couple drops of food grade peppermint essential oil and a vegan candy cane are hard to beat ;)