Notzarella-Vegan MOFO Day 25

5Just a super short post from me today. We have a new vegan cheese and its made in Australia, its called Notzarella and at the moment you can purchase some online here.  It's not cheap though, particularly if you have to pay for postage. To make it slightly cheaper we went half with our friends Bec and Troy.  We have tried some on pizza, the failed enchiladas and then grilled on toast. Texture wise it is great, I mean look at it:

I wouldn't recommend eating it raw, but cooked its great. I kind of wish it had a bit of a stronger flavour though as it's super mild. As a friend suggested I think eating it plain on toast doesn't work but with other things tomato, chives etc is great.

Box Brownies at Mercy Seat- Vegan MOFO Day 20

I was going to post about how I have focusing on healthy food but then Toby bought home these and I changed my mind. The healthy posts can wait til later. Mercy Seat announced on facebook that they are selling gluten free AND vegan macadamia cookies and peanut butter brownies made by Box Brownies. I was so excited that I not so subtly hinted that if anyone happened to be in Collingwood they could get me one and Toby surprised me by getting them today.

The cookie was fine, but the brownies were amazing. You know i'm a bit biased when it comes with the chocolate peanut butter combination but they were seriously great. They contained a peanut caramel on top which reminded me of the caramel filled apples and the apple slice from veganomicon, and sweet candied nuts and a soft sweet brownie base. Will be certainly be getting more in the future.

Gluten Free Apple Pie- Vegan Mofo Day 15

I won some gluten free pies from funky pies about a month ago and have been meaning to post to say that their gf pastry is new and improved particuarly in regards to texture. Then Anikee announced that radical grocery had gluten free apples pies so I raced out to get one. Here is my half with some strawberry ice cream. Toby and I both loved it. The filling was perfect and the pastry kind of resembles whole wheat pastry. We will certainly be buying them again and again!

Arlingtons Tapioca Desserts- Vegan Mofo Day 4

I had seen my fellow vegans on twitter in sydney comment on these tapioca desserts but didn't know that they were available here in Melbourne until friends Craig and Bec bought them to my attention and then gave some to us. They found them at Leos in Kew. They gave us 4 flavours to try: coconut, cinnamon apple, passionfruit and raspberry.

The coconut is really creamy,  the passion fruit is sweet but also tangy, the raspberry is slightly tart and the apple cinnamon has just the right amount of cinnamon. I can't decide what my fave flavor is. They are a great serving size but are so addicitive that they didn't last too long in our household. I've had plenty of warm tapioca desserts before but these are cold and just as delicious. Supposed dessert hater Toby enjoyed them too, he said his favourite was coconut. They are pretty natural too and apart from the sugar in them are are almost good for you. You can find out where your closest stockist is by checking their website, only seem to be in nsw and vic at the moment. I'm going to visit Piedimontes soon and stock up on some more and also try a few of their other flavours.  Rika has also blogged about it the passionfruit flavour.Sydney Vegans what is your fave flavour?

Choc Rice Cakes- Product Review and Recipe

I discovered these mini dark chocolate coated rice cakes in the supermarket the other day and was pleased to discover that they were both gluten free and vegan. Anyone who has every worked with me knows that my two most common snacks at work are chocolate and rice cakes. Although not normally together as I tend to put peanut butter on rice cakes. So I was intrigued by this pack which I found them in coles for about $3.90 for a packet.



At the first bite, I was still not convinced but after eating one or two I'm now a total convert. It allows me to have my choc fix but in smaller portion and also fills me up at the same time.  They are much smaller and thinner than regular rice cakes so after sharing a few with colleagues and indulging in several the packet was quickly gone. They do vaguely remind me of chocolate digestives which I was also a big fan of.




So tonight I tried to recreate them using regular size rice cakes. I used the multigrain corn thins and melted a tiny bit of lindt dark chocolate with coconut oil and simply spread a thin layer and let it set. I can't tell you how much though because the chocolate was leftover from another recipe I was making. They were just as good but next time I would use the neutral plain rice cakes as the multigrain ones have a weird sorgum/corn flavour which doesn't go that well with chocolate. I can defintely see this becoming a regular snack in our household.

Service Announcement: Kitchen Aid Food Processors Leak!!!

After years of much cheaper food processors I recently made a $600 investment with a kitchen aid food processor and discovered the hard way that they leak on the first use. So disappointing since I love my red mixer and loved that it would match. I was told from the matchbox store that you have to add the ingredients one at time and it how the bowls are stored in cupboard etc. Even the website says if leaks you should try to pulse liquids for only 1-2 seconds at time. There are no scratches/holes etc it is just a bad design. Matchbox refused to give me a refund instead offering to give me a new bowl and I'm since found out that this a regular fault: see this google search for example. Such a waste of money! I'm making a complaint to consumer affairs but wanted to share the news so others don't get stuck in the same situation.

So spread the news!

US Products Which We Loved

These were only some of the products which we tried and loved there was plenty more like hemp milk (I think it was this brand) and a vegan box of chocolates from Food Fight but I forgot to take pictures of them. I also loved the crazy rumours lip balms which I've thankfully also found in Melbourne.

I tried maybe 4-5  vegan ice cream flavours, but these were the two we tried when we had an ice cream party with Susan. We each bought some ice cream and shared. They were all delicious but I'm not a huge fan of the fake cherry flavour. I can't decide if the luna and larry coconut chocolate hazelnut fudge (pictured) or the purely decadent coconut based chocolagte peanut butter swirl was my fave.

 

I really don't get why we don't have awesome vegan yogurt here when both the UK and the US can do it. I enjoyed several flavours in this coconut range (except for cherry-what is with the fake cherry flavour?):

 

Another thing that the US do well in gf cereal, these were my favourites, particuarly the maple sunrise and from memory it was pretty healthy too.


I tried 3 brands of vegan peanut butter cups but these were my fav, they were just a tad saltier which is perfect in my book. I  really need to replicate this recipe.





Other sweet treats which I loved, justin's flavoured nut butters including maple almond butter, sour gummies bars, and the whole range of eli's earth bars, and the little individual organic chocolates from sjaaks particuarly the caramel ones.

It was only the flight home that I finally tried tings and we devoured the huge bag. I had heard Mandee rave about them but had trouble finding them. I had looked in a few whole foods but couldn't find them. I eventually asked someone at wholefoods who showed me where they were hiding which was not in the chip aisle but somewhere else. They taste a lot like twisties and have nooch in them so I wish I took more packets home with us.

Only one more US post to go from Toby, can you guess what it might be on?  And that will conclude our US holiday posts. I hope I haven't bored the Australian readers with these posts.

Gluten Free PPK Parcel Swap

I organised a gluten free package swap on PPK a few months ago. I've never participated in a swap before, let alone organised one but i've always thought they were an awesome way to share vegan products with people in other parts of the world. I  figured that us gluten free vegan folk could also benefit from one, but it was open to anyone so we also had some non gf ppkers send some awesome packages too. My swappee was strawberryrock on PPK who lives in Portland, I send her a package which consisted of a range of products including mintons, smooze, chocolate sesame snaps, pretezels, a wallaby bar and a few other things and she send me this:

It included stickers, two types of gf jerky which had the right amount of smokiness/saltiness, sweet but slightly salty cocomels made from mostly coconut milk which are quite addictive, gluten free vegan version of oreos, i know!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Also raw crackers, soy curls, dandies marshmallows, hot sauce which had a slightly sweet flavour and was great on nachos. I think this chocolate bar was my favourite, it kind of resembles a snickers bar with peanuts and caramel:

The brand is Eli's earth bars and this one is called dream big bar. I felt very spoiled especially since I'm sure delivery costs alone must have been expensive and I love the fact that when I go to the US in a few months that I will already be familiar with several awesome products which I won't hesitate to eat again.

You can read about other swaps too either on the ppk forum, or from posts from bitt of raw, vegan culinary crusade and in my box. Let me know if I've missed any. I love how different each parcel was.

Thanks to strawberry rock and everyone who participated!

Macro Golden Choc Filled Biscuits- Reviewed

My mother bought these for me and I stupidly decided to check that they were vegan by reading the label and then realised I didn't need to because it was clearly labelled as vegan as you can see on the box. Labelling products vegan and gluten free makes life a lot easier particularly since I'm having to scan for two different types of ingredients. After tasting one though I realised that they were the same biscuits which used to be under the Woolworths Free From range which were in a white and orange plastic package. This makes sense since Woolworths now owns Macro. The biscuits remind me a lot of the Arnotts Kingston biscuits which I used to have growing up which are neither gluten free or vegan. Although I'm not sure how great my memory is since it's about a decade since I tried one but they certainly looks the same.

Pros:

• clear vegan label
• They cost $3.75 which is pretty good for gluten free biscuits.
• They have a great crunchy texture which resembles regular gluteny biscuits
  
• They have a lovely sweet flavour.
  
• Easily accessible at all or most Woolworths (Safeway) supermarkets.

Cons:

• They do have quite a strong coconut flavour and I think I would prefer to taste more of the chocolate in the middle but this is really a minor thing which wouldn't stop me from buying the biscuits.
• They are filled with sugar so not so healthy.
  

Ginger Choc Mousse- Vegan Mofo day 12

I've been unwell this week with crazy fatigue, nausea and a throat infection. I try not to eat dessert when I'm sick but as long as I'm not vomiting I can't really stay away. I know ginger is supposed to be good for nausea and sore throats so decided to make an easy dessert which includes ginger. When I mean make, I really just mean open a carton but anyway.....

I discovered isola bio cacao rice based dessert al riso at the gluten free expo and soon after at radical grocery store. It's a tad on the pricey range but given that it tastes amazing, is organic and made from fair trade cocoa, rice, agave and not much else I don't mind paying a bit more for the occasional indulgence. Besides rice is good for your stomach, right?

So I added some grated ginger using the microplane grater and mixed it all together. I then added more so that the ginger flavour was noticeable without being overpowering. The ginger paired really nicely with the chocolate and had me thinking of other ginger based desserts including an ice cream recipe that I'm going to try. Can you think of any other summery ginger desserts?

And because this is a bit of a short post, here's a pic of button.