Busy busy

So tonight is the last night we'll have to spend in our flat. This whole moving process seems to be taking forever! Probabaly because my little corolla is just that - little, and not all that much stuff fits inside it. Or maybe it's because not everything is in boxes, for example, today I'll be piling all our dresses into the backseat and hanging them up as soon as I get to the new house. Our coffee table books I put in the boot without a box because they make a box way too heavy, and I carried them in in smaller piles. And, it was a sweltering hot day yesterday and I thought I was going to collapse. Then I remembered the south's heat wave and realised it wasn't actually that hot, I'm just a wuss.

Regardless of my wussiness, I am so so glad I took this week as a holiday, rather than going to work and trying to move our copious amounts of crap at the same time. We need to do a big Lifeline run I think. I also need to not ever buy anything ever again. Except the thing is, most of the crap I've found that is mine I've been moving around since highschool.

So somewhere in amongst the cramped calves from running up and down stairs, to the blood blister on my finger from dropping a box of vintage crockery on it, and the brusies on my hips from whacking myself on our cast iron bed frame - I have to eat lunch. And in the interest of getting rid of as much perishable stuff in the freezer/fridge as is possible before I dig out our esky to clean which is currently under the stairs getting pooed on by geckos, I opened the freezer and pulled out the most empty packets I could find: edamame and those weird vegan prawn substitutes.

This was pretty tasty, actually, and really not that great for you. But who cares, I'm moving house.

Vegan prawn and edamame pasta
Serves 1

Ingredients:

100g spaghetti or other pasta shape that is hiding in your pantry
Margarine for frying
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 tsp dried dill
5 vegan prawns, chopped up
handful of frozen edamame, defrosted and shelled
black pepper
olive oil

Put pasta on to boil. When it's nearly done, melt the margarine in a small saucepan and fry the garlic and herbs for a minute. Add edamame and prawn pieces. Cook until prawn pieces are done, not long. When pasta is ready, drain, and stir through the prawn mixture. Drizzle olive oil over top and season with as much black pepper as you like.
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Nadine asked yesterday if I was even a little nostalgic about leaving the flat. We have been here for two years after all. I said no. Though I will miss the colour of the kitchen cupboards:


Excuse the messy picture. This was probably taken over a year ago when I first discovered my camera had a panorama function.

 I won't, however, miss my pantry. Or my bench space. =D

'Chicken' with Orange Teriyaki

Since it was my last day of holidays yesterday (sadface) I decided to make a fancy lunch. Because I can.

I found 'Seitan and Brocollini with Clementine Teriyaki sauce' on Vegan Yum Yum, thought it sounded fantastic and made it. I just used oranges instead of mandarins for the sauce because mandarins aren't in season at the moment :) The sauce is delicious and made heaps so I'm going to use it to make this again for Nadine for tea! It's a perfect balance of sweet and salty, and bonus points for making it at home - no more expensive bottled sauce. I only needed 2 dessertspoons of sauce to coat all my veg and soybean chicken bits, and it was a rather large meal. I used regular brocolli and some purple cabbage as my veges, and served it with brown rice.

I thought about making some seitan for it, but came to the conclusion that it was too much effort so I dug this soybean chicken out of the pantry. When I bought it I was intrigued and asked the guy at the counter what it was like. He said it was pretty good - and that it was apparently good enough for people to get angry at him when it was out of stock! Now, it is actually quite good, but since I prefer my protein to come mainly from unprocessed foods I don't think I'd abuse the store guy if it wasn't on the shelf!

It only costs $3.95 (where I got it) for a 200g packet, which has four servings in it. One serving is quite a lot, so you could probabaly stretch it to six or eight servings if you up the veges in your stir fry or whatever you're making.

What you do, is you boil the little dried pieces of whatever it is in some water until they are soft, then you drain and rinse with cold water. Proceed to use in any recipe you'd use actual chicken!

It comes out of the water looking disturbingly like cooked chicken pieces. Doesn't taste like it though, it's all about the sauce/flavorings with these things! The texture is pretty damn spot on ( I don't know how they do it!), and I wouldn't hesitate to reccomend this product to people wanting to give up chicken or those transitioning from eating meat to being vegetarian/vegan.

(I am not being paid to flog this product by the way.)

Lunch: Lemony Lentil Salad

Lentils, capsicum, lemon juice, spring onions, olive oil, dijon mustard, black pepper

I decided this year I need to be more prepared with my work lunches - more salads and not so many leftovers. Only because I'm sick of waiting in line for the damn microwave! And someone almost always puts a fish and/or chicken dish in there before mine and the whole thing reeks.

Anyway I was on Pinterest this morning and came across this delicious sounding salad that would be easy to eat, doesn't require reheating and had minimal preparation. And it has lentils and I have nearly a whole kilo to use. And anything with mustard in the dressing is a winner.

I only made like one minor change to the ingredients - reduced the olive oil by 1 tablespoon. I don't mind eating it unheated, but I thought 3 sounded a bit much. I'd have put the third tablespoon in if there wasn't enough dressing to go round though. I also sliced the capsicums long and thin because that's how I like them.

I got three lunch sized servings out of the recipe.

A bit of a summery cocktail recipe

Watermelon Champagne Cocktails

Makes 4 champagne flutes

Ingredients:

1 cup frozen watermelon chunks

1/2 cup ice cubes

2 tbsp lime juice

2 tbsp citrus (or plain) vodka

Sparkling white or rose of your choice

Lime to serve

Put first four ingredients in a blender and blend until it makes a slushy. Divide into four champagne flutes and top up with the sparkling wine of your choice. Or you could use real champagne (it's all supposed to be vegan). Decorate with lime slices and serve!

The wine I used was a very sweet low alcohol content sparkling wine called 'Zibibbo' by Brown Brothers (all vegan). I usually buy Yellowtail sparkling white but they didn't have any :( This wine is still lovely though, and very celebratory. I don't think you have to use a sparkling, though, still white wine would be very nice as well :)

Haven't washed my hair for a week. Hey I'm on holidays!

We were lazy again this new years; finished off the bottles of wine we bought, watched Back to the Future part 3 and hit the sack at about 9pm. There was an excuse! Nadine had to work this morning and I had to drive her and we didn't want to risk a bad breath test :P

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This year, instead of resolutions, I'm just going to write down a couple of goals for 2012. The word resolution annoys me! :P

1. I will run the Gold Coast Half Marathon this year. Already started training! I'm back to step one now after my break from the Bridge to Brisbane in...September. Lol.

2. I will change jobs.

Woohoo! Happy New Year everybody, thanks for reading my little blog :)