james test

Hello from surprisingly sunny England! We'll be blogging irregularly from the northern hemisphere over the next few weeks, on a trip that combines small doses of work on Cindy's part with sight-seeing and plenty of vegetarian eating for the both of us. Due to the vagaries of our ridiculous travel plans (Cindy returns to Australia from the UK via Chattanooga, while I head back through Tokyo), it made sense (financial sense anyway) for the two of us to fly in to London some six hours apart. This meant that I turned up at Heathrow at about 7:30 in the morning; tired, hungry and alone. After finding a place to stash my luggage for the day I headed off to Marylebone Lane for some breakfast, based on the Lonely Planet Guide’s recommendation. After fruitlessly strolling up and down the lane and failing to find Providores (in my sleep deprived state, the street numbering system was utterly incomprehensible), I slumped with some relief into Eat and Two Veg . We’d been quite impre...

January 2016: Doing a bit of blog tidying up and it looks like this place has been closed for ages. Cindy's been agitating for a visit to Laksa Me for some time - there's been plenty of good press for it and the affordable, speedy Asian food it promised seemed perfect for a pre-theatre bite. It's tucked away on trendy Liverpool Street in the city, and would be pretty easy to walk straight past. There's nothing too slick about the inside either - it's all clearly aimed at being low-key and minimalist, with lots of concrete and bare tables. We had no problems wandering in and getting a table at 6:45 on a Friday and, despite a couple of decent-sized groups turning up, it didn't look like bookings would be worth worrying about. The menu is pretty substantial, but the vego options aren't super abundant: there's a few starters, a curry, a laksa and a pad thai - not a bad list, but not a huge range either. We started with one of the starters each: a ve...

Our Oxfam 'World in Your Kitchen' calendar has been relatively successful so far. The focus is really on simple recipes, with relatively few ingredients that take less than half an hour to throw together, which is ideal for a lazy workday dinner. June's treat was from Ghana: mushroom and eggplant stew. I was a bit skeptical of this recipe - it seemed to be relying entirely on onion and a pinch of chili to flavour up the vegies. I ended up adding in a few teaspoons of garam masala towards the end of the cooking to boost the taste a bit. It turned out to be a hearty, warming mush for a winter's evening. The extra spices were probably necessary - I think it would have been too bland for me otherwise. I'm not sure I'll rush back to make it again, but it was simple and reasonably tasty - full of chunky mushroom bits swimming in a mashed up eggplant sauce, with crispy onion bits providing the only textural interest. We opted to serve it on top of some quinoa, wh...

As a feeble excuse to blog those chickpea cutlets again, here's a satay burger sauce recipe. It's ultra-thick for minimum drippage, sweet and crunchy. However, ours came up short on the heat level - I just didn't add enough red chilli flakes. I think a 'lil fresh red chilli would really liven this up next time. The recipe comes from a list of Award-Winning Veggie Burger Recipes , taken from Vegetarian Voice magazine (though I found it at Yeah, That "Vegan" Shit ). That's a recipe list we'd do well to work our way through, isn't it? Maybe it'll develop into a series of themed posts. It'll be difficult to tear myself away from those chickpea cutlets, though - this time I tried one of Lisa's adaptations , using crushed Vita Brits instead of breadcrumbs. I didn't detect any difference in the patties and this is the more convenient approach in this household - when Michael's not sampling Melbourne's cafe-poached eggs he...

Our ongoing dynasty of inner-North breakfasts took in another stop last weekend. A reasonably new place tucked away on Scotchmer Street near Dench Bakery (which, shamefully, we've yet to blog). Our Fitzroy informants Mike and Jo put us on to the place and the joined us, along with Kerrie and Daniel for a Sunday morning sampling. Things start pretty slowly on the North Island - we got there at 9:30 and there was only one other person there. It was pumping by the time we left though, so it'd be wise to turn up before 10:30 when North Fitzroy wakes up. The menu is chock full of vegie options - from $4 bagel 'n' jam to $9.50 slow-roasted tomatoes. Cindy (along with Jo and Daniel) couldn't resist the bombay toast, served with blueberry compote, pear and orange blossom cream. Just look at it up there - all slathered in orange-blossom cream and soaked in berries and sauce. The toast was thick and rich without being as greasy as French toast can be. The pear was just...

I didn't expect to blog Markov Place again - not because I don't go there, but because I tend to order the same things each time. But on Saturday night, while celebrating Yung's birthday and making the most of Carlton before she moves away, Michael and I branched out. Placing my faith firmly in the restorative power of cocktails , I kicked off the evening with a vodka, pear and cardamom concoction and was duly rewarded with a cool but comfortingly spicy beverage. Markov is currently offering plates of vegetarian paella to share. Studded with broad beans, baby green beans, grape tomatoes and goats curd, it's a nourishing meal. You need a minimum of two people to order, and you'll be charged $25 per person. Lovely as it was, this seems a little expensive for what's offered: while Michael and I were well fed, three girls further down the table received the same portion to share between them and were charged, yes, $75. If nothing else that ensured room for des...

The next bloggers' meet-up , set for July 26, introduces a few new elements that make it particularly appealing to me: it adjoins a market , it's north side, and it's most definitely veg-friendly! The plan is to meet at Lentil As Anything at the Abbotsford Convent at 12:30 for lunch. ( I'm told that Abbotsford is the best of the Lentils, so can't wait to give it a shot.) The stayers can then retire to Handsome Steve's House of Refreshment , and decide for themselves whether Steve and his house are all they're pitched to be. Lest you feel timid or wary about meeting crazies from teh Internets, I can assure you that you won't find a friendlier or funnier bunch of food fanatics. Trust me, I've checked 'em out myself - twice . So come join us! I'll be the nondescript gal with the mushroom brooch. Michael will be tall, ginger-haired and affable. He always is.

I'm not the superstitious type at all, but my Friday the 13th was looking pretty unlucky. I was sent to Canberra for the day by my boss, to present a project I knew nothing about to a group of suits I'd never met. My flight home should have been just early enough for me to take a taxi straight from the airport to a much-anticipated reservation for Cafe Vue's Friday cocktail night. I first read about Cafe Vue's cocktail nights on Melbourne Gastronome . Five cocktails and five small plates for $75, and at one of Melbourne's most prestigious eating empires! It was mystifyingly good value for (admittedly a lot of) money and as I perused their website , I was a little disappointed that "vegetarian option available" wasn't discreetly printed anywhere. A couple of days after mentioning it on Claire's blog, she sent me a private message assuring me that they did indeed offer a vegetarian option - hooray! We eagerly set a date with Jo-Lyn and Mike fo...

It's been almost a year since our last visit to the Hotel Lincoln and this time it proved to be a cosy and convenient environment for dinner with Marty and Mike. The bar is popular and the adjoining dining area also fills up, though the tables are generously spaced. A peek down the corridor reveals more tables, these covered with white linen. The menu changes seasonally, though the proportion of vegetarian options remains fairly constant - dahl and naan ($13) appears on the bar menu, while the restaurant offers one meat-free entree and one main. I picked the entree: chestnut and mascarpone ravioli with sherry mushrooms ($15), and additionally ordered a side salad. This was a larger portion than I expected, given Michael's little entree last time , but I relished every mouthful of the rich sauce and potent mushrooms. Though this would have been filling enough on its own, the lightly dressed green salad was a good choice for balance. This is Michael's main, the vegetaria...

Cindy and I have been quite taken with our soy bombs - we've made and enjoyed the repeatedly. Each time, Cindy has made some muttered comment about using the soy bombs as meatballs in a spaghetti 'n' meatball style dish. We decided it was worth giving the idea a crack, and Cindy drummed up this bolognese recipe from More to Love Vegan . Cindy's a little overwhelmed with work at the moment, so I took on the cooking duties - my first attempt at making these little balls myself. Just to complicate things, I decided to find out whether these bombs would work baked as well as fried. I won't run through the whole recipe again - we've blogged it before here . Basically I followed all the steps up until the frying, and baked them in a preheated (180 degree) oven instead of plopping them in the frypan. They probably had about half an hour all up, with numerous stops to rotate them about. Baking them probably leaves you with slightly drier bombs than frying does, ...

I'm not sure that the picture above does justice to this savoury tart, though caramelised onions are rarely pretty things. However, I've learned what a mellow delicacy they are and am no longer repelled by their appearance. Nor should you be - this tart is a perfect light autumn meal with a short list of ingredients and straight-forward preparation. Just toss together a salad of green leaves while it's in the oven and you're done! The recipe belongs to Dayna, with her perpetual Vegan Visitor s, and you can check it out on her blog . Though she recommends that it can be served warm or chilled, I'd urge you to to enjoy it fresh. Puff pastry is never quite the same at any other time, though I must admit that the onions took on the most intriguing blue tinge a day later!

After a year-long hiatus, I had another shot at these pumpkin and spelt muffins . And I made some changes: I had a bottle of pear juice concentrate at the ready to substitute for the tedious hour and a half taken to reduce a litre of apple juice to syrup; Since the pear juice now lacked an opportunity to be infused with peppercorns, cinnamon sticks and coriander seeds, I blended in 1/4 teaspoon of each of these spices, ground; I folded in chopped 86% cocoa chocolate . Adding minimally-sweetened chocolate to these soft, sticky muffins had just the effect I had hoped for. These muffins feel completely indulgent, break up my workday afternoon, and are a superior choice to the overpriced chocolate bars in the neighbouring food court.

Even though this Tokyo treat wasn't completely new to me, I expected it to be an intense experience. Chocolate with 86% cocoa is bitter . But good bitter. These miniature, individually wrapped portions are just the right size for a cocoa jolt. However, I had a particular job in mind for most of these. Their assignment will be revealed in my next post.