Pretty in Pink

Just because: VCTOTW Golden Vanilla, with strawberry buttercream icing (I poured in some strawberry dessert topping), dark chocolate discs and fresh strawberries.

The Vegan's Hundred

More meme madness! Hannah Kaminsky at BitterSweet has created the Vegan's Hundred, a list of things every vegan should try in his or her lifetime. So now here, thanks to the wonders of Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, and bold tagging, is my list, beginning with the original instructions. Depending on your cultural background and experiences, some things are quite uncommon, or are more common under a different name, but I haven't changed the original names, and frankly, can't be stuffed creating links — so google anything you're not familiar with.

Also: clearly I need to eat a more varied diet! Obviously, it's not an exhaustive list, and there are plenty of vegan things I've eaten that aren't listed. And of course in some cases I have tried the thing in my lifetime, but not the vegan version specifically (which is the point here, presumably). For example, I enjoyed many a mango lassi B.V. (before my veganism); I just haven't got around to creating or sampling a non-dairy version... yet. All in all, a good reminder that vegans eat more than lettuce and lentils.


Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

1) Copy this list into your own blog, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Post a comment here once you’ve finished and link your post back to this one.
5) Pass it on!

1. Natto
2. Green Smoothie
3. Tofu Scramble
4. Haggis
5. Mangosteen
6. Creme brulee
7. Fondue
8. Marmite/Vegemite
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Nachos
12. Authentic soba noodles
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Taco from a street cart
16. Boba Tea
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Gyoza
20. Vanilla ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Ceviche
24. Rice and beans
25. Knish
26. Raw scotch bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Caviar
29. Baklava
30. Pate
31. Wasabi peas
32. Chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Mango lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Mulled cider
37. Scones with buttery spread and jam
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Fast food french fries
41. Raw Brownies
42. Fresh Garbanzo Beans
43. Dahl
44. Homemade Soymilk
45. Wine from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Stroopwafle
47. Samosas
48. Vegetable Sushi
49. Glazed doughnut
50. Seaweed
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Tofurkey
54. Sheese
55. Cotton candy
56. Gnocchi
57. Piña colada
58. Birch beer
59. Scrapple
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Soy curls
63. Chickpea cutlets
64. Curry
65. Durian
66. Homemade Sausages
67. Churros, elephant ears, or funnel cake
68. Smoked tofu
69. Fried plantain
70. Mochi
71. Gazpacho
72. Warm chocolate chip cookies
73. Absinthe
74. Corn on the cob
75. Whipped cream, straight from the can
76. Pomegranate
77. Fauxstess Cupcake
78. Mashed potatoes with gravy
79. Jerky
80. Croissants
81. French onion soup
82. Savory crepes
83. Tings
84. A meal at Candle 79
85. Moussaka
86. Sprouted grains or seeds
87. Macaroni and "cheese"
88. Flowers
89. Matzoh ball soup
90. White chocolate
91. Seitan
92. Kimchi
93. Butterscotch chips
94. Yellow watermelon
95. Chilli with chocolate
96. Bagel and Tofutti
97. Potato milk
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Raw cookie dough

Adventures in "cheese"

Earlier this week, while shopping in my usual supermarket, I noticed that alongside the vegetable burgers and tofu they always offered, there were Tofutti Cream Cheese (something that I'd thought about using in cupcake icing), and Tofutti Cheese Slices. I had been thinking last month about cheese substitutes, so this day, on a whim I bought one packet of the slices, and tried them out over the next few days. I kept it simple, because this was not fancy vegan mozzarella I was dealing with (also, I'm often very lazy when it comes to cooking). I started one day with grilled cheese on toast, with a layer of Carmelina's Explosive Mixture. Dinner that night was nachos, so I threw my plate under the oven griller and melted some cheese over that. And today I tried the stuff melted over plain pasta.

The results:



Highly processed? Yes. Greasy? That too. Tasty? Undeniably. I don't know... does liking the taste of "cheese" make me a bad vegan? Well, if I am, then I'm in good company, because a lot of vegans seem to be into various brands of vegan cheese. I won't be making it a staple of my diet, but certainly it's something I'll try again.

Incidentally, yes, in two of those shots you can indeed see the Xanadu soundtrack on CD... because I thought there should be some actual cheese in the photos, too. Ba-dum-dum-tish!

Five things to do after I turn thirty (which means I should have started by now!)

From MCT/AAP via the Sydney Morning Herald comes this list of thirty things to do before you're thirty. Looking back, with no regrets, on what I did or didn't do in my twenties, and comparing my experiences to this list, I think the list comes up short. Anyway, it's inspired me to set five meaningful goals to achieve by the end of my thirties. So here they are.

1. I have to be happy with the way I look. Not just acceptance: actual appreciation for all of it, from the crown of my head to my toes. Flaws aren't to be just tolerated- they're to be loved along with the good parts.

2. I want to be able to sing. Not just to hold a tune, but to really belt out a number. This is not supposed to impress anyone else, but I will be immensely pleased.

3. More languages, more music and writing, more cooking and baking, more creativity. In short: develop mad skills. This certainly should include becoming much better at pool.

4. Travel more. Anywhere, always, at every opportunity: a trip to the next suburb or to another continent. It's all worthwhile.

5. Leave room for silliness. Good sense has a way of taking over if you're not careful.

$?#@ing cupcakes!

I wanted to try out some purchased black writing gel icing, so this afternoon I made these passionfruit cupcakes (VCTOTW vanilla without the vanilla but with passionfruit pulp added) with coconut-flavoured icing. They really aren't my best effort. I added too much of the passionfruit, which weighed down the cupcake mix and caused them not to rise very well. But they still taste quite acceptable, and I'm definitely happy with the effect of the black symbols on the white icing.

Meat the pasta of tomorrow

Hmmm. New Zealand has given the world many wonderful things. I fear this isn't one of them. A scientist in Hamilton has developed a way of turning meat into long spaghetti-like strips.

"It tastes like meat and it can look like meat but we can actually change the composition of the product quite a lot so we can mask the meaty flavour," Mike North from AgResearch says.

Hey, you know what else looks like spaghetti and doesn't have a meaty flavour?

Spaghetti.

Mad Tofu Disease

Happy August! I have nothing to say, so here's a video instead. This has been around for quite a while now, but I still find it funny.